What's Past is Prologue
by LAXgirl
Summary: Last in the "Masters of Their Fate" trilogy. The arrival of Dinobot and Rattrap's son, Switchblade, from the future changes the course of the Beast Wars forever. Fem!DinoTrap
1. Dark Prophesy

New story! Whoohoo! Enjoy.

**Chapter One: Dark Prophesy**

A dome of endless blue skies stretched overhead. Not a single cloud was visible on the horizon in any which direction. Cheetor's jet engines purred as he banked left into a warm air current and climbed higher into the air. The land scrolled past several hundred feet below him. The greens, tans and browns of rocky hills and shrub-filled valleys made an earthy mosaic of colors. Everything within a fifty mile radius was visible to the young explorer. Buoyed the warmth of the sun on his back, the refreshing whip of wind in his face and invigorating thrill of zooming through the air at high speeds, Cheetor let himself become caught up in the moment and executed a perfect barrel roll - complete with a small whoop of delight at the weightless sensation he got in his fuel tank.

"Cheetor," a disapproving voice called out over the roar of the wind. "I don't think now is the time to be playing. Optimus sent us on a mission. We should be focusing on our assignment."

Cheetor leveled out and slowed down to fall into formation beside his companion, Silverbolt. He had the decency to give the fuzor a chastised grin. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry. I just got a little carried away."

"No apologies necessary," Silverbolt assured. "It is, after all, a beautiful day. We would be remiss not to appreciate the planet's natural beauty."

"Do you really think we're going to find a spaceship out here?" Cheetor asked with a sideways glance at the other flier. They'd been flying for almost an hour and were within less than a hundred miles of the continent's southern coast. Cheetor had never been this far south before, but he'd seen topographical scans of this part of Earth's main landmass and knew there were little to no resources in the area or any geographic landmarks that might prove stategic in the Maximals' ongoing fight against Megatron.

"Maybe," Silverbolt shrugged. "Dinobot said she saw a small spacecraft break through the atmosphere and disappear in this direction."

"You don't think she might have just seen a stasis pod?"

Silverbolt shrugged. "Perhaps. But I doubt it. Since joining the Maximals, I've come to trust Dinobot's observations implicitly. If she says she saw a spacecraft, then that is what I believe she saw."

"I guess…" Cheetor mumbled under his breath, unconvinced.

"You do not seem excited at the possibly of finally being rescued and returning to Cybertron," Silverbolt observed.

The young racer heaved a heavy sigh. He didn't quite know how to explain what he was feeling right now. "I _do_ want to go home, Silverbolt. It's just that something doesn't feel right about this. I mean, we've been stuck on this planet for almost two years now. If Cybertron had sent out someone to look for us they should have gotten here not long after we crashed. Why've they only found us now? I don't think that ship - if it even _was_ a ship - is here to rescue us. Who even knows if it was Maximal? It could be a Predacon ship with some more of Megatron's goons. Plus the Axalon's scanners didn't even pick up a recognizable Cybertronian signal. All the scanners could tell us was that Dinobot saw _something_ come through the atmosphere and go in this direction. What if what she saw was some kind of weapon that was sent here by those aliens that tried to kill all of us with that quantum surge last year? I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up as kitty litter by some group of planet-experimenting aliens!"

"I suppose an alien weapon is always a possibility," Silverbolt humored him with a light-heartened grin. It was obvious by the fuzor's expression that he thought Cheetor was victim of an overactive imagination. The transmetal cheetah bit his glossa from childishly snapping at Silverbolt not to joke about such things. He doubted yelling was going to give his concerns much weight in the fuzor's eyes. Beating his wings harder as the two of them were buffeted by a strong headwind, Silverbolt glanced over at Cheetor. "Like you said, Dinobot might have been mistaken and at the very least seen a stasis pod. That could mean the addition of another crewmate to our ranks."

"I suppose…" Cheetor mumbled, still unconvinced. He had a niggling feeling in the bottom of his fuel tank that told him it wasn't a stasis pod Dinobot had seen despite his earlier speculations of the possibility. That niggling feeling was telling him whatever he and Silverbolt were searching for was going to have a bigger impact on the Beast Wars than just a new addition to the crew. Whatever it was that'd arrived on planet Earth was something more important than that…

The two continued for several minutes of unbroken silence. Below them, the rocky land had begun to flatten and become more grassy the closer they came to the coast. Far ahead of them Cheetor swore he could see the first hint of the ocean shimmering like a mirage in the distance. Like a thin strip of crushed glass sprinkled along the horizon, distance waves glistened in the sunlight.

Cheetor's excitement for finally getting a chance to see the planet's immense ocean, however, was short lived. For as he and Silverbolt sped closer to the coast he happened to notice two small figures appear several miles ahead of them, traveling in the same direction as them. It didn't take much effort to identify them.

"Uh oh…" he growled. "Looks like the Preds also detected that object Dinobot saw and sent Terrorsaur and Waspinator to retrieve it."

Silverbolt frowned and transformed to his bi-pedal form mid-air without even slowing down. "Seeing as how Optimus ordered us to do so first, we cannot allow that to happen. If it really is a stasis pod we're looking for we cannot let the Predacons get to it first."

"You said it!" Cheetor called. "Let's show these two clowns they're not the only ones out here."

Kicking both their flight systems into overdrive, Cheetor and Silverbolt cut through the air. The ground below was nothing but a blur of greenish brown. Wind whistled across their audios. Within moments, Terrorsaur and Waspinator were within several hundred feet of them.

"I'll go left!" Cheetor called over the roar of wind to Silverbolt. "You go right! We'll come at them from two sides!"

Silverbolt nodded and banked hard to the right. The two Predacons were now less than a hundred feet ahead, both of them in beast-mode. Neither of them showed any sign that they'd detected Cheetor and Silverbolt's approach. Cheetor grinned and swung left in a wide looping curve. Silverbolt was coming around on the two Predacons' other side.

"Hey, uglies!" Cheetor yelled as he and Silverbolt converged on their unsuspecting prey. "You two looking for something out here?"

Terrorsaur and Waspinator both visibly startled at the sound of his voice - Waspinator going so far as to let out a frightened warble.

"Maximals!" Terrorsaur screeched. "Terrorsaur, terro-!"

Unfortunately, the pteranodon didn't even get a chance to begin his transformation before a well-aimed missile from Silverbolt exploded against his back and sent him spiraling down out of the sky. Waspinator followed him half a second later when Cheetor physically body slammed into the insect. Tucking his limbs close to his body, Cheetor dive-bombed through the air after the two. Silverbolt followed. Fifty feet above the ground the two Predacons finally recovered their bearings and managed to level out. With quick commands they transformed and almost immediately had their weapons out and aimed at the two Maximals.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Cheetor shouted as a barrage of laserfire sliced through the air towards them. One shot came so close to hitting him Cheetor actually felt the sizzling heat of the blast graze his right shoulder. Spinning away in a barrel roll, the racer returned fire with the laser cannon on his back. Terrorsaur and Waspinator both ducked to the sides, narrowly missing the blasts. Ground and sky quickly became a chaotic kaleidoscope of green, brown and blue. Laserfire and missiles zipped back and forth through the air without either side gaining any noticeable upper hand.

"That spacecraft is ours!" Terrorsaur called over a particularly loud explosion. "Megatron ordered us to retrieve it!"

"It's ourzz!" Waspinator buzzed in agreement. "We saw it firzzt!"

"Yea right," Cheetor growled, firing several more shots towards the two. "If that's a Maximal ship, we're using it to go back to Cybertron with!"

Terrorsaur gave a screechy laugh that made the younger Maximal's audios fill with back feed. "You're going to have to beat us to it first!"

"I don't think so," a new voice called out. "That ship is private property."

Cheetor, Silverbolt, Waspinator and Terrorsaur all froze and looked up just as a new set of jet engines became audible over the rush of the wind and a compact teal and gold figure dive-bombed through the air towards the two Predacons. Cheetor was just able to make out what appeared to be transmetal wing-like appendages and a forked whip-like tail before the figure slammed into Waspinator, which sent the insect spiraling through the air, warbling pitifully. Terrorsaur didn't even get a chance to put up any kind of defense before a wild barrage of laserfire exploded from the ground up towards him.

"Ah!" he screamed as the airspace immediately around him became a virtual firing range. One blast clipped his arm, singing his armor black. "Waspinator, retreat! Retreat! There's too many of them!" With a throaty cry, the flier transformed to beast-mode and sped away as fast as his wings could propel him. Waspinator didn't need to be told twice and shot away after him, his wings beating so fast their papery hum was still audible from several hundred feet away. Within minutes, the two shrank into the distance before finally becoming lost to sight.

A moment of intense silence followed in the wake of the Predacons' retreat.

"What just happened?" Cheetor murmured in a daze to his companion. Silverbolt could only shake his head in mutual confusion.

Without a single word to them, the teal and gold figure that'd come to their rescue cut his engines and dropped down out of the sky to the ground several dozen feet below.

Cheetor glanced at Silverbolt. "Should we follow him?"

"He did come to our aide which leads me to believe he is not an enemy," the fuzor said. "Plus, his sudden appearance would suggest he might be from the spaceship we detected."

Cheetor gave a reluctant nod and with Silverbolt beside him dropped out of the sky after their mysterious rescuer. The stranger had already transformed to his bi-pedal form by the time Cheetor and Silverbolt alighted on the ground in an open area of grass. A thin grove of trees and shrubs stood not far away from them to the right. As he transformed to his own robot-form, Cheetor took a moment to study the newcomer.

The mech was shorter than the average Maximal, but his stocky build gave him an intimidating aura. After seeing the way he'd body-slammed Waspinator, Cheetor doubted he was any kind of pushover in battle. Two wing-like appendages framed either side of the mech like shields. Both of them bore a Maximal insignia. A facemask hid the entire lower portion of his face from view. It was only as Cheetor continued to stare at the newcomer that he realized the mech's beast-mode was some kind of marine animal - most likely a sting ray or something of the like. It made sense. If he'd been aboard the ship they'd detected he'd probably landed somewhere near the ocean, making the chances of him scanning a land-based life form less likely.

"Thanks for helping us out back there," Cheetor greeted with a hospitable smile. "We appreciate it. Terrorsaur and Waspinator usually aren't that difficult to deal with, but they can be a nuisance."

"Don't thank me," the mech growled in a decidedly _unwelcome_ voice. "I wouldn't have bothered rescuing you two if I didn't think that would have raised the odds of those Predacons finding my ship."

Cheetor and Silverbolt exchanged glances out of the corner of their optics. Neither had to guess what the other was thinking. This mech was definitely _not_ the friendliest bot to ever land on planet Earth.

"You can thank me though!" a different voice called behind them.

Cheetor and Silverbolt spun around towards the woods where a new figure had appeared at its edge. Cheetor blinked in surprise. The second newcomer was a young mech, probably only a few decades older than himself. His protoform was a dark blue with bright silver armor. Dark red optics stood out sharply against his blue and silver color scheme.

"Yinz guys okay?" he called as he strode towards them. "It looked like you were having trouble with those two, so me and Depthcharge decided to lend a hand. I would've done more, but seeing as how I can't fly the most I could do was offer some heavy ground fire."

Cheetor stared in stunned silence. It wasn't just the second mech's sudden appearance that prevented him from returning the other's friendly greeting, but his looks. There was something unnervingly familiar about the mech. Cheetor felt like he should know who this bot was but for the life in him couldn't place him. Dark blue stripes that appeared almost black in the sunlight ran down the mech's arms and legs. His helm wrapped tightly around either side of his face, but that did little to hide the defined edges of the mech's facial plates. His optics were a startling crimson hue that seemed to look deep into whatever it was he was looking at. A large plume of stiffly bristled, dark blue feathers ran down the top of his helm in a style that reminded Cheetor of some ancient Terran culture. The mech was taller than his gruff companion. In fact, he was taller than anyone else there. Cheetor had to tilt his head back slightly to be able to meet the other mech's optics.

"We thank you for your help," Silverbolt gratefully nodded. Cheetor could tell the fuzor also found the younger mech familiar and was trying to place him. "Allow me to introduce us. I am Silverbolt, and this is my companion Cheetor."

"Oh, we know," the younger mech said, waving his hand in the air as though shooing away their introductions like he would a fly. He smiled at the two with a playful grin. "We already know all about you and the rest of the Axalon's crew."

Cheetor's carburetor skipped several revolutions. He stared at the two strangers suspiciously. "How do you know about us? Did you two come from stasis pods that had all the crew's information encoded in them?"

The younger mech pursed his lips together on one side of his mouth and squinted his optics up at the sky as though trying to decide how best to explain. Cheetor couldn't explain why, but the expressive twist of facial plates made him less apprehensive towards the newcomer.

"Not exactly…" the younger stranger hummed.

"We are from Cybertron," the other mech - Depthcharge, Cheetor was sure he'd heard the younger one call him - interjected.

Cheetor instantly perked up. "You mean they really did send someone to look for us? We're saved! We can finally go back home!"

The younger mech with the plume of feathers made another face - this one a bit more squeamish as though he was reluctant to burst the other's moment of happiness. "Not exactly…" he said.

Cheetor instantly sobered and stared at the two. His spark sunk with disappointment. He hadn't felt this disappointed since the Maximal's first and last attempt to leave the planet almost a year and a half before.

"If you're not from any stasis pods and you weren't sent here to rescue us by the High Council, then how did you get here and how do you know who we are?" Silverbolt asked.

"We're not from the same timeline as you," Depthcharge replied. His deep voice rumbled the warm air. "We've come to this place from a timeline almost seventy years in the future of when the Axalon left Cybertron to explore this sector of the galaxy."

Cheetor and Silverbolt exchanged confused glances.

"You mean you're from the future? I mean, even farther in the future than we are?" Cheetor said.

"That's what I just said," Depthcharge growled.

"If you aren't here to rescue us, then why did you come to this time?" Silverbolt asked.

The blue mech winced as though he'd been dreading this question. "That's going to take some time to explain. It'd be better if we explained everything all at once with the rest of the crew. I'm sure everyone's going to have a lot of questions and I really don't want to have to answer them twice."

"I suppose that sounds reasonable," Silverbolt nodded. "I will comm Optimus to know what he thinks about the matter." Out of the corner of his optic, the fuzor cast Cheetor another look. Cheetor silently returned it. This entire situation was becoming stranger and stranger with each passing moment. His processor was literally abuzz with curiosity about these mysterious newcomers from the future.

"So what are your names?" he asked. He gave the blue mech a pointed look. He was still trying to figure out why he looked so familiar.

"Oh!" the younger stranger startled. "Sorry, my bad. I almost forgot. This-" he gestured towards the shorter, disgruntled mech beside him "-is Depthcharge. And I'm…" He trailed off with a noticeable pause as though unsure how his answer would be received by Cheetor and Silverbolt. "…Switchblade."

For a moment neither Cheetor or Silverbolt reacted except to stare in stunned silence at the blue mech. At first Cheetor couldn't quite make the mech's reply compute. But as the words were converted to processed code, Cheetor suddenly became even more aware of the mech's unsettlingly familiar features. His face. His optics. His coloring. His knowledge of them and supposedly the rest of the crew. His frame. His build. His entire being suddenly became eerily similar to the Maximal crew's best fighter and her son.

Cheetor's jaw dropped as everything suddenly snapped together in his head like puzzle pieces. His optics widened to the size of dinner plates. "Oh my god."

"Primus…" Silverbolt murmured. He looked just as taken aback by this revelation as Cheetor. "Is this for real?"

"As real as real can get," Switchblade - the adult son of Dinobot and Rattrap from the future - affirmed. He smiled as though truly amused by their incredulous looks of shock.

Moving as if in a daze, Silverbolt reached one hand up to the side of helm and tapped his comm-link line open. "Silverbolt to Axalon. Come in. Over."

"_Axalon here_," Rhinox's voice hissed over the line. "_Have you found the spacecraft yet?_"

"Yes," Silverbolt numbly replied. "But you're never going to believe who was inside it…"

* * *

Rattrap sat at one of the monitor stations on the far side of the bridge, staring at the two newcomers Cheetor and Silverbolt had brought back to base in stunned silence. The two mechs stood in the middle of the room near the holo-table. Optimus stood across from them with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a thoughtful look on his face. The entire Maximal crew was gathered there. Not a single crewmember was missing. After Silverbolt's message to base saying who he and Cheetor had met, no one had wanted to miss this meeting.

Dinobot stood close beside him with their son perched in the crook of one arm against her chest. Although the warrioress was outwardly calm, Rattrap could feel a roiling storm of emotions coming from her through their sparkbond. The emotions came so quickly it was difficult to accurately decipher them before his sparkmate's feelings morphed once again into something else. Through their bond he felt excitement, curiosity, confusion, anxiety and wariness. Maybe it was because of Dinobot's distrustful nature towards almost everything, but suspicion and doubt were the strongest emotions he felt coming from her. She warily eyed the two newcomers through narrowed optics. He could feel her skepticism that they weren't really who they said they were. Rattrap wasn't sure what he himself felt about everything just yet because of the barrage of emotions coming from Dinobot's side of their bond, but he couldn't deny he shared some of the warrioress's doubts - along with what appeared to be half of the crew. More than a few of the other Maximals scattered around the edges of the room stared at the two newcomers in open curiosity and lingering disbelief.

It was a rather difficult story to swallow, after all. From what little he'd overheard Silverbolt say over the comm-link, these two were supposedly from a future Cybertron just like them, but from a time almost seventy years _after_ the Axalon had left on its exploratory mission to the far reaches of the galaxy. And to top that off one of them was saying he was his and Dinobot's own son!

Almost unconsciously, Rattrap glanced at the tiny sparkling perched in his sparkmate's arms and then towards the younger of the two mechs Cheetor and Silverbolt had brought back to base. Although a large dose of skepticism remained Rattrap had to admit the mech's looks certainly gave his claim some validity.

Obviously an infantry model, the mech looked like a younger, less bulky version of Dinobot when she'd still been masquerading as a male. Unlike Dinobot's mech disguise, though, his frame was more compact and less intimidating. His face bore many of Dinobot's distinctive features, but those features were noticeably less harsh than the warrioress's as though some genetic trait had smoothed them down and made them softer in appearance, especially around his optics and nose. The mech was tall. Rattrap estimated he was only an inch or two shorter than Dinobot, who was the tallest of their group. The bristly plume of feathers running down the top of his helm, however, hid the deficiency and actually made him appear taller than he really was. Glancing between his infant son and the mech, Rattrap was also forced to recognize the similarities of their coloring and markings. Nor could he ignore the eight inch raptor claws curving up from the insteps of both the younger mech's feet or the taloned tips of his fingers. It was obvious the mech's beast-mode was some kind of small, carnivorous dinosaur. And Rattrap was willing to bet any amount of money that that dinosaur was a velociraptor…

On the other side of the room Optimus gave a delicate cough into the side of his hand. The room instantly grew silent. Everyone's attention was riveted on the two figures, especially the one claiming to be Rattrap and Dinobot's son, Switchblade.

Ever the diplomat, Optimus nodded his head to each of the mechs in turn. "Welcome to the crew of the Axalon." He turned to the older of the two and looked the bot up and down. "Depthcharge, it's been awhile. You're the last bot-" Optimus paused and cast the other mech with him a quick glance out of the corner of his optic. "Scratch that. _Second_ to the last bot I ever expected to see here on planet Earth."

"You've got that right, Primal," Depthcharge agreed, his body language openly hostile towards the transmetal gorilla. "But I didn't come here to exchange pleasantries with you or the rest of your crew. I was sent here on a mission."

No more than a few minutes into their meeting and Rattrap already knew he wasn't going to like this teal and gold mech much. His attitude rubbed his circuits the wrong way.

"Wait a minute. You actually _know_ this guy, Optimus?" Cheetor said from the other side of the bridge.

Optimus nodded. "Yes. It's been awhile, but I first met Depthcharge when I went to High Council and received my orders to become captain of the Axalon and lead this exploration. He's head of security for the space colony Omicron."

"_Was_ head of security," Depthcharge sourly pointed out. He sent Optimus a withering glare. "It's been almost seventy-five years since Omicron was destroyed and the one responsible allowed to live."

"That's kind of why we're here," the other mech with the feathered crest interjected.

Optimus's attention was instantly shifted to the other mech. "Ah, yes… Switchblade."

"Switch if you don't mind," the younger mech corrected. "I always feel like I'm going to get yelled at when people use my full name. My mom's the only one who calls me Switchblade, and usually when I screw something up." Out of the corner of his optic he glanced at Dinobot.

Rattrap felt Dinobot stiffen beside him. A wave of indefinable emotions coursed across their sparkbond and crashed against the back of his sparkchamber. Her optics narrowed to two thin slits of red. Stepping closer to the one claiming to be her son, the warrioress glared at him. "I don't believe you. The story that you are my son is preposterous! There's no way you're really him." Unconsciously, her grip on the sparkling in her arms tightened.

"Why?" Switchblade calmly asked, as though used to the warrioress's hostile stubbornness. "Why's it preposterous that I traveled back in time from a timeline only seventy years in the future of when you and dad did the exact same thing? It's the same as, like, two people going to the same place from two different starting points. We just happened to met in the same place at the same destination."

Dinobot's optics narrowed, her expression tightening. "We have no proof you really are who you say." She shifted the sparkling in her arms and clutched him closer her breastplate. "How do we know you are not some agent sent here by Megatron or some other enemy agency to infiltrate our crew."

Switchblade actually laughed. "You really think someone would go to that much trouble to cook up some elaborate story of your son coming back from the future just to get inside the Axalon to spy? Aw, man, I wish! That'd be an awesome subplot for some late-night drama, but ironically is completely true in this case." Becoming serious, the young mech looked deep into Dinobot's optics. "I know it's totally crazy but I really am Switchblade, mom. I really am your son."

Dinobot's hostility softened. Rattrap felt a pulse of uncertainty and hesitant thrill pulse across their sparkbond. But a thread of doubt still remained. "I still demand some kind of proof of your identity," she said. "I will not feel comfortable until I am sure."

Switchblade shrugged as if he'd already been anticipating such a test. "Well, besides my devilish good looks which everyone says I inherited from you-" he said with a teasing smile "-I also happen to have this." Tilting his head back, he pointed to a place just below his jaw on the right side of his throat. Everyone in the room leaned closer. Even from a distance Rattrap could see the delicate silvery line of scar tissue Switchblade was pointing at. "That's from when Talon snuck onboard the Axalon and held me hostage as a sparkling. Since I was too small to go into a CR chamber at the time, I never got it properly repaired and ended up with this scar."

"Primus," Airazor breathed in awe. "He has the exact same scar Switch does. He even knew we couldn't put him in a CR chamber."

The looks exchanged between the gathered group of Maximals now was one of growing astonishment. Rattrap couldn't deny his own thrill of shock upon seeing the silvery scar.

But one amongst them was still not completely convinced.

"A scar like that could be easily faked," Dinobot snorted. "Such a mark cannot be used as definitive proof of one's identity."

Rolling his optics, Switchblade gave Dinobot an exasperated look. "I had a feeling it'd come down to this." Without missing a beat, he fluidly switched languages and began to speak in a harsh, guttural tongue. The hard consonant and long vowel sounds echoed off the bridge's metal walls and reverberated through the room. It took Rattrap several spark-pulses to recognize the language as spoken Predacon. From his sparkmate Rattrap felt a near crippling wave of shock course across their bond.

Dinobot froze, her optics two perfect circles of red, and stared at the mech. "How do you know Predacon?" she demanded in a shaky voice.

Switchblade shrugged. "You taught me. I learned it, like, the same time I learned Common Tongue."

"But why…" the proud warrioress seemed momentarily at a loss for words. "Why did you say that?"

Switch shrugged again. "I don't know. It means nothing to me. But right before I left Cybertron to come here you told me to say that in case you didn't believe who I was."

Dinobot numbly bobbed her head as though too dazed to do anything else. "So I would," she murmured as if to herself. "I doubt anything less would have given me the sufficient evidence I would need to believe such a story…" In her arms, Switchblade - the younger self of the grown mech in front of them - chirruped and squirmed. The warrioress distractedly patted his back to shush him.

Taking advantage of the lull created by Switchblade and Dinobot's mysterious exchange, Optimus stepped closer to Switch and Depthcharge. "Why exactly are you two here? Obviously it must be something of great importance or you wouldn't have risked making such a dangerous trip."

Depthcharge cast Optimus a scathing glare. "We're here to clean up the mess you left after the Beast Wars ended, and to prevent a horrible catastrophe that will cost millions of innocent people their lives both on modern Earth and present-day Cybertron."

Nervous glances were exchanged between the Axalon's crewmembers. Rattrap glanced at Dinobot who also looked back at him. Despite her stoic expression he could feel the anxious knot of dread forming in the pit of her fuel tank as well as his own.

"What kind of catastrophe are you talking about?" Rhinox hesitantly asked.

Switchblade crossed his arms across his chest. His face became stormy and dark. "Several million years from now on December 21st in the year 2012 C.E., Protoform X, also known as Rampage, will awaken from a long-term stasis lock and begin a killing spree on modern day Earth. Waking in present-day southern Mexico, X will kill everything in his path all the way up across North America's southern coastline. In Cape Canaveral, Florida, after killing close to 2.5 million humans, Protoform X will highjack a prototype military spacecraft from nearby Patrick Air Force Base and use it to return to Cybertron with for revenge in a second rampage. This second killing spree, by the way, doesn't include the twelve space colonies he decimates along the way to Cybertron. By the time he's finally brought down, more than 5 million people are dead - many of which were close friends of mine - and several cities and space colonies completely leveled."

"You people did a horrible job of disposing of Protoform X," Depthcharge hissed. The black glare he sent Optimus left little doubt in anyone's mind who he blamed for the disaster. "This was why I wanted X's spark permanently extinguished after I brought him back to stand trial for his crimes in Omicron. I told the Council it was dangerous to put him in stasis and dump him on some uninhabited planet. But no one would listen to me. Everyone was too squeamish to do what only I seemed to know needed to be done. And now millions of innocent lives have been lost because of the Council's softness. For a long time after the Axalon left to dump his stasis pod, I considered going after X to finish the job myself. But after you returned from the Beast Wars saying he'd been killed, I believed justice had finally been served." His glare at Optimus intensified. "Looks like I was wrong to believe you could finish the job yourself."

"Wait a minute," Blackarachnia said, holding one pincer up in the air for attention. "Rampage, Protoform X, or whatever you call him, is already awake. He became part of Megatron's crew more than six or seven months ago."

Switchblade shook his head. "We know that. But that's not the problem. In our timeline, when yinz guys finally defeat Megatron and win the Beast Wars, Rampage was thought to have died in a massive landslide during the final battle. Instead, he was really only put into a deep stasis-lock and buried for several million years until a Mexican mining crew had the bad luck of stumbling across him. Because of the time needed to travel between Earth and Cybertron without any kind of hyperspace drive, it took the spacecraft X stole from the U.S. military almost three hundred years to reach the nearest space colony in the Alpha Centauri system. From there he hopped from colony to colony - stealing newer and faster ships at each new settlement - until he finally reached Cybertron. By the time word got back to Cybertron about the destroyed colonies, X had reached Cybertron's outer satellites. Thousands of people were killed before he was finally taken down just outside of Iacon and permanently deactivated."

Switch swept his dark red gaze around the room, making sure he had everyone's undivided attention. "Depthcharge and I have been sent here by the Maximal High Council to hunt down X and destroy him before he gets the chance to go into stasis-lock and wake up in modern times. I knew some of the people he killed - some of them very close friends of mine." Over the course of his dialogue, Switchblade's face had begun to tightened around the edges until his facial plates were a twisted snarl of anger. Rattrap was eerily reminded of his sparkmate in the heat of battle and the fearsome expression she always wore while fighting. "I want X dead," Switch spat. "I want him stopped before he kills anymore people for his own twisted amusement. And I'm not going to leave until I'm sure he's gone for good."

Utter silence reigned over the bridge as everyone digested this horrifying glimpse into the future.

"You said the Maximal High Council sent you on this mission?" Optimus solemnly intoned.

Switchblade nodded. "The idea of going back in time to prevent X's killing spree was originally thought up by a former general in the Maximal Imperium. It gained so much popularity that the High Council immediately approved it. Depthcharge and I were chosen for the mission. Him because of his prior experience hunting down X, and me for my familiarity with the planet and everyone here."

"What about the time fractures you'll cause by changing history?" Rhinox interjected. "I know that's basically your entire motive for coming here, but you have no idea how anything you do will actually change the future. You might end up doing more damage than good by trying to change things. Who knows what your meddling might do."

"I doubt we could make things any worse than how they've already turned out," Depthcharge growled. "All we want to do is permanently remove X from the timeline. Any and all details that might change as a result are inconsequential."

Rhinox stared at the ex-security officer, his expression aghast. "You can't be serious. The Intergalactic Treaty of 3724 clearly states that those using transwarp technology are strictly forbidden from-"

"Oh, slag the treaty!" Depthcharge snarled. "I'm not trying to right every wrong in the slagging universe. I just want X dead! He killed millions of people and destroyed countless settlements - including my colony! I want him stopped before that happens again. We were sent here by our own High Council to terminate him and I'll be damned if I go back without finishing the job."

Switchblade glanced at Optimus. "If it makes you feel any better, the High Council sent me along to make sure Depthcharge doesn't go overboard."

Depthcharge growled behind his facemask. "I already told you, Switchblade, I don't need a babysitter."

"We'll see 'bout that," Switch muttered, unconvinced.

Across the holo-table, Optimus heaved a sigh. "If the High Council's ordered this, then there really isn't any way for me to question your mission. If there is anything we can do to help please let us know."

"Oh, I have a feeling we're going to be taking you up on that offer eventually," Switch dryly assured him.

"I still can't believe you guys are really from the future," Cheetor said. "Well, _our_ future at least." He looked Switchblade up and down. "It's kind of cool to know what's going to happen before it actually does."

"I gotta agree with cat-nip breath over there," Rattrap agreed, finally deciding to enter the conversation. Getting to his pedes, the spy crossed the room until he stood directly in front of his adult son and looked up to meet Switch's gaze with a smirk. "It's nice ta see how tall ya actually grew. I was afraid ya were gonna end up my size fer da longest time."

Switchblade's reply was a wry grin. "Like I haven't heard that one before, dad," he snickered before breaking into an amused chuckle.

_To be continued_

I hope my explanation for Switchblade and Depthcharge coming from the same time makes sense. I really would like to know what people think of adult Switch and his proposed mission on Earth.

Thanks for reading!

Signing out  
-LAXgirl

P.S. Identify Switch's accent and win the award for Useless Trivia Expert.

P.P.S. Links for sketches of adult Switchblade can be found on my profile page.


	2. Glimpse into the Future

_The Common Wind Deity_ wins the award for Useless Trivia Master. Switch has a Pittsburgh accent. (Hometown pride! Represent!) If Rattrap can have a Brooklyn accent, then Switch can have a Pittsburgh one. At least that's my philosophy.

**Chapter Two: Glimpse into the Future**

"Wow. Talk 'bout old school technology," Switchblade said from beneath one of the Axalon's main computer consoles. The young mech sat cross-legged on the floor in front of it. The computer station's front panel had been removed and lay propped up against the console beside it. His arms were sunk elbow-deep in a snarl of relay cables, transistors and other miscellaneous circuitry. "There're some components in here I've only ever _read_ about in text-files before."

Rattrap sat in the chair beside Switch, watching the younger mech work over his shoulder. He was glad to just supervise. His bad shoulder was aching badly today, and the thought of crawling underneath the consol to pull out wires and fiber optic lines was not enticing. "Well, wha'da ya expect? Yer workin' on ship dat was build almost a century before you even came online."

"Hm, point taken," Switchblade hummed. "It's just weird to be working on something that would be considered so out of date in my time." He ducked his head lower underneath the consol and squinted into the gloomy innards of the Axalon's mainframe. "It looks like this's been repaired a ton of times. I'm counting 'bout six different solder points on the circuit boards, and maybe three or four patches on the fiber optic lines. You did all these repairs, didn't you?"

Rattrap raised one optic ridge. "Yea. How'dja know?"

Switch cast him a quick smirk over his shoulder. "I can tell by the solder marks. You're the only bot I know of who solders his welds in a circular pattern."

Rattrap blinked. "That's impressive."

"Not really," Switchblade shrugged. "You're the one who taught me how to repair internal computer parts after all." Pushing several cables and circuit lines to either side of the access panel out of his way, Switch pulled out one of the computer's main motherboards. He scrutinized it for a moment with narrowed optics. "Hm, this one should be replaced. In fact, it probably should've been replaced ages ago. I see at least five repairs on it."

"Unfortunately, we don't have a replacement board," Rattrap sighed. "When ya don't have a big supply of spare parts layin' around, sometimes ya just gotta make do with repairing it as best ya can."

Switchblade nodded. "I guess that makes sense. Crash landing on an alien planet is never convenient, is it? Luckily though, I thought ahead before Depthcharge and I left Cybertron and brought along some extra computer parts." Glancing back over his shoulder, he motioned with his chin towards a collection of tools spread out across the floor between them. "Can you hand me that laser torch, dad?"

Rattrap's spark gave a little skip as he reached down and handed the younger mech the requested tool. Even now, more than twenty-four hours after Switchblade and Depthcharge had been brought to the Axalon and had explained their mission to the crew, he still had moments of shock like now when he was reminded again of just who it was he was talking to. This young mech was his son. His own circuits and mech-fluid who'd come back from the distant future to prevent a horrible catastrophe from happening again. The mech had proven his identity beyond the shadow of a doubt to everyone on the crew. But sometimes Rattrap still had trouble computing that this Switchblade was the same Switchblade he'd seen slip from his sparkmate's chest little less than a year ago in a slippery mess of bio-metallic fiber and umbilical fluid, or the same sparkling he'd rocked in his arms in the pitch-black hours of the morning until the tiny newspark finally drifted back into recharge.

Who would have ever thought that that sparkling would someday grow up into such a tall and handsome mech. Maybe he was biased because of his relation to him, but Rattrap couldn't get over how good-looking his son had turned out. He'd bragged about Switch being a cute sparkling, and he saw no reason to curtail his bragging now after seeing his son as an adult. Although Switchblade had inherited most of his looks from Dinobot, Rattrap could see his own genetic influence in him that smoothed down the harshest of Dinobot's features and made them something different - something more approachable and attractive. Nor had Rattrap missed little glimpses of his own personality and sense of humor in this older Switchblade whenever he spoke or shot back a sarcastic comment or two towards his grouchy companion from the future.

All in all, it was not difficult for Rattrap to admit he liked this older version of his son.

"So wha's dis thing ya wanna install in da ship's software again?" Rattrap asked as Switchblade ducked back underneath the consol with the laser torch. In the spy's hand he held a small metal box with several USB ports in its sides. Whatever it was was unlike anything Rattrap had ever seen before. Its casing was made of a strange iridescent metal that shimmered whenever Rattrap held it up to the bridge's lights. He'd come on bridge right as Switchblade was finishing what appeared to be an intense discussion with Optimus - probably asking for permission to fiddle around with the ship's software - and been asked by his adult son for help in installing a new upgrade.

"It's an advanced bio-electrical sensor," Switchblade said from halfway inside the access panel. His voice was muffled inside the narrow space. Ducking back up from underneath the consol, he looked up from the floor to meet Rattrap's optics. Even sitting on the ground like he was, Switch's head still came up to almost Rattrap's chest where he sat in the consol chair. "You know how you can't detect mom's clone because of her artificial spark? Well, this upgrade will make Sentinel able to detect her."

"Get out!" Rattrap crowed, turning the device back and forth in his hand with new interest. "Wish we had dis before. Could'a saved ya from gettin' dat scar on yer neck from Talon."

Switchblade's lips pressed together in a thin line and the protomatter around his eyes crinkled with thinly veiled contempt at Talon's name. "Yeah. Probably. But I brought that thing along more for later on in the war. I grew up hearing your and mom's war stories about how much trouble Talon gave yinz guys because yinz couldn't detect her. Thought I might try to, like, give yinz guys an upper hand or something."

Rattrap studied his son curiously. "Wha' other things did'ja bring back from da future?"

Switchblade tiled his head back to look up at the ceiling as he searched his memory banks. He began to tic the items off one by one on his fingers. "Two plasma batteries for Sentinel, a couple chests of miscellaneous ammo, some basic medical supplies and a few months worth of extra energon rations. Depthcharge and I were originally going to travel light, but then mom suggested bringing some of those things along. She told me about how bad yinz were hurting towards the end of the war for supplies. I'll have to talk to Optimus soon about organizing a team to go back to Depthcharge's ship to get them."

"I thought dat overgrown sardine ya came here with said ya two didn't want ta change anything else 'cept takin' Rampage out."

Switchblade cast Rattrap a decidedly mischievous look. "Yeah, the High Council warned us not to try to interfere with history too much more than we were already planning. But in my opinion whatever the High Council doesn't know can't hurt it."

Rattrap stared at Switch for a long moment of stunned silence before returning his son's grin with a sly smirk of his own. "Yer definitely a chip off da ol' block," he chuckled.

Switch's grin deepened as he leaned closer and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, "Oh, I also brought something else back just for you. Tonight when you go back to your quarters, check inside the storage compartment on the third deck just before you turn into the crewmembers' wing. I stashed a container of high-grade in there."

Rattrap gaped. "Yer kiddin'."

Switchblade shook his head, his mischievous smirk now a devilish grin. "Nope. Thought you might like a lil' something to help see you through the rest of the war until you're able to get to a real cantina."

The spy stared at his adult son for a full klick of stunned shock before breaking into loud, guffawing laugher. "Dat's mah boy!" he cheered and ruffled the feathers on Switch's head. "Ya do know, though, dat yer mom's probably gonna kill me whenever she finds out I got another canister of high-grade stashed away."

"Another?" Switchblade said. His optic ridges knotted together underneath his helm's nose guard.

Rattrap shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Um… _cough_… yea, I had another canister of high-grade I shared with her 'bout a year ago. It's all gone now, but I don't think Dino-breath's gonna wanna see anymore fer a very long time." Apparently neither his future self or sparkmate had decided to tell Switch any details about just _how_ he'd been conceived…

Switchblade smirked. "Well, like I said before: whatever mamma don't know can't hurt her."

Father and son shared a conspiratorial look, their grins mirror images of each other.

Reaching out, Rattrap affectionately ruffled Switchblade's crest again. "Always knew ya were gonna grow up ta be an okay bot."

"Glad to know, dad." With a small chuckle, Switchblade took the sensor device from his father and disappeared back underneath the computer consol. Rattrap heard the soft sizzle of the laser torch as the younger mech began soldering the device into place and the snap of USB cables being attached.

Several minutes later, Switchblade reemerged from inside the consol. He clapped his hands together several times and wiped them against the sides of his legs to rid them of dust. "There. That should do it. Go 'head and reboot the system. The sensor should automatically load into the Axalon's software."

Rattrap did as he was told. The computers hummed as they all blinked offline and almost immediately whirled back to life. A new icon blinked on the screen when the main menu came back on.

"Looks like it loaded," Rattrap said as he clicked the icon open and scanned the device's operating codes.

"Awesome." Switch snapped the access panel back into place underneath the consol and began to gather up his tools. "At least that's one less thing we have to worry about. I want to avoid meeting Talon again for as long as possible. Having one bot like her as my mom is more than enough."

Rattrap snickered. "Yea, I can understand dat."

From the doorway to the bridge came the sound of approaching footsteps. There was more than one set of pedes making their way towards the control room, but one set was more distinctive than the rest. It's booming _thud-click_ echo reverberated against the walls all the way down the length of the hall towards them.

"Speaking of mom…" Switch cheerfully noted and got to his pedes.

Rattrap swiveled around in his chair just as Dinobot marched through the doorway with their sparkling son perched in her arms, followed closely by Blackarachnia and Airazor. He wasn't surprised to see all of them together. For the longest time now, wherever Dinobot was the other two were usually not too far away.

"Hello, ladies," Switch called as the three femmes came into the room. He threw each of them a charming smile.

"Hey, Switch," Airazor said. "What have you been up to today?"

"Just installing some new software for Sentinel onto the computer with dad."

"Have you two been behaving yourselves?"

The young mech feinted a wounded pout. "Of course. Why would you ever think we weren't?" His pout fluidly morphed into a playful smile.

Airazor laughed - a rare thing for the now quiet and withdrawn flier ever since her lover's disappearance. "Because you're Rattrap's son and I can see a little bit of him in you every time I look into your optics."

"I haven't even been here a full day and you've already got me nailed down pat," Switchblade chuckled.

"Great," Blackarachnia sourly murmured from the other side of the bridge. "Just what we needed: another mech with the same sense of humor as the rat."

Instead of becoming defensive like Rattrap might have guessed from his son, Switchblade's demeanor suddenly became exaggeratedly suave and flirtatious. Crossing one foot over the other at the ankle, the young mech leaned against the holo-table in the middle of the room and propped one fist on his cocked hip joint - striking a seductive pose.

"You shouldn't judge a person before you've taken the time to get to know him," he purred in a velvety voice. "I can be an extremely fun mech to be around if you gave me a chance."

Blackarachnia looked the young demi-Predacon up and down before meeting Switchblade's optics again with her lips curled back in an unimpressed sneer. "You know, seduction just doesn't work on a femme who's seen your waste tank emptied as a sparkling."

Snorting with amusement, Switch dropped his act. "Well, aren't you the mood killer. You're still the exact same Blackarachnia as in my time."

"Thank Primus. I was afraid my time with you Maximals would degrade my personality drives." Blackarachnia briefly returned Switchblade's playful smirk with one of her own before resolutely turning her back on him and booting up one of the other computer stations.

Rattrap glanced up as Dinobot strode up to stand in front of him. "I am scheduled to go on patrol. You will need to watch Switch until I return."

"Yea, sure. Come here, bud."

Their sparkling son chirped as Dinobot bent to transfer him into his sire's arms. Rattrap settled the sparkling in his lap and ruffled the downy line of feathers running down the top of his helm. "Ya ready ta have some fun with yer dad, kiddo? Maybe yer older self can teach ya some new games he knows you'll like."

"Actually, dad, if it's alright with mom I'd like to go out on patrol with her." He glanced at Dinobot as though seeking her permission. "I need to get to know the lay of the land. I might've come online here on Earth, but I never really went outside by myself before everyone went home after the war. You know what I mean? My knowledge of Earth will really only be useful, like, several million years from now."

The warrioress mulled this over for a moment before giving a curt nod of approval. "Very well. We leave now."

"Great," Switchblade said, hurriedly stuffing the rest of his tools in their pouch and tossing them to the side. "Beast-mode!" he called, and in a flurry of shifting limbs transformed into dark blue raptor with scarlet eyes. An impressive spray of feathers covered the back of his head and each of his elbows. Dinobot also transformed, her body quickly reforming into a brown and tan velociraptor.

"See ya later, Switch," Rattrap called as the two raptors made their way towards the lifts. The sparkling in his lap looked up and chirped. "Not you, bud. Yer other self." Rattrap suddenly realized they were going to have to devise some better way of differentiating between the younger and older versions of his son.

_Dis is gonna get interestin'…_ he thought with a dry snort.

Dinobot and Switch somehow managed to squeeze into one lift together and dropped out of sight. Rattrap switched on one of the ship's perimeter cameras and watched the two raptors speed out from under the Axalon's belly like two seeker missiles and disappear over the nearest rise towards the east. In his lap, Switch gave a happy burble. Slipping his hands under the sparkling's arms, Rattrap lifted him to eye level and studied the miniature features of his son's face. Switch stared back at him with a toothless smile, chortling nonsensically.

Rattrap smiled with smug satisfaction. "Always said ya were gonna be a good lookin' mech," he said as he settled Switchblade back in his lap. "Yer mom can take credit fer dat, but I wonder wha' she's gonna say when she realizes just how much ya've taken after _me_ once she's talked ta ya fer a bit." Rattrap chuckled evilly. He leaned down closer to his sparkling son and whispered in his audio, "Wha'cha say we go an' find dat canister ya brought fer me before you an' yer mom get back?"

Switchblade innocently chirped as his father hoisted him into his arms. Then, taking care not to attract the attention of Blackarachnia and Airazor, Rattrap quietly slipped out of the room - his intended destination the storage compartment on the third deck.

* * *

Traveling in a quick jog Dinobot led Switchblade across the open fields towards the eastern border of Maximal territory. After several miles, Dinobot slowed to a walk. Switchblade fell into step beside her.

"So where are we?" he asked, looking around the empty landscape of scrub grass and rolling hills with interest.

"Five point three miles from the eastern edge of our territory. Beyond that begins the line of Predacon patrols."

Switchblade nodded. His scarlet eyes darted back and forth, memorizing the land with focused concentration. A cool breeze swept across the field, ruffling the plume of feathers on Switch's head. His and Dinobot's taloned feet padded softly against the loamy ground. The short grass rustled against their legs.

As the two continued their patrol in comfortable silence, Dinobot took the moment to study the younger bot out of the corner of her eye. In beast mode Switchblade was almost the exact same size and shape as her. The only real difference was their coloring and Switchblade's dark blue plumage. Dinobot was reminded of when -what felt like ages ago after she'd been forced to shed her mech disguise - she'd explained to Rattrap the physical differences between male and female velociraptors, and how anyone who would have bothered to open a data-file on her beast-mode species would have immediately known she was really a femme. It was strange how long ago that all seemed.

Not wanting to be caught staring, Dinobot forced herself to look away from her adult son. Even now, a day after he'd proven his identity to her and the rest of the crew, she still found it hard to believe this was really her own progeny from the future. She had moments when she still had trouble believing she had a bonded mate and infant sparkling. She'd lived too long as an independent warrior obsessed with earning a glorious death on the battlefield that sometimes she was startled to realize just how much her life had changed course in the last year and a half. And to now be faced with her own son from seventy years in the future was enthralling and just a little bit frightening at the same time.

"_Can I ask you a question, mom?_" Switch's voice broke through Dinobot's thoughts.

Dinobot startled. It was Predacon her son had just spoken. The last time she'd heard her native tongue spoken like this was before her defection from Megatron's crew to the Maximals.

Switchblade seemed to detect his mother's surprise and explained. "_We usually use Predacon whenever dad's not around. He can't understand more than a few words and doesn't like not knowing what we're saying. He's always paranoid we're talking 'bout him." _He chuckled softly under his breath. _"You wanted me to learn it when I was still a sparkling and it just kind of became a habit with us ever since. I can switch to Common Tongue if you want."_

"_No,"_ Dinobot replied in the same guttural language. The harsh consonant sounds rumbled her chest and throat. It was a sensation she hadn't realized how much she'd missed until now. "_It is nice to once again be able to converse with another in my native language."_

Switch nodded, his usually confident demeanor suddenly hesitant and shy. _"I know it's kind of weird for me to be showing up like this out of the blue, but I just wanted to know if you're cool with me being here and everything. If it's too strange for you I'm sure Depthcharge and I can find somewhere else to use as base until we find Protoform X and take him out. I don't want to be a burden on anyone or make you or dad uncomfortable…"_

"_You are staying right where you are with us,"_ the warrioress hissed. She was slightly startled by the wave of maternal panic that surged through her circuits at Switch's offer to leave. _"Primitive Earth is a dangerous place. Especially when Megatron is bent on destroying this planet, and Protoform X is as dangerous as you say he is. I will not allow my son to needlessly put himself in danger."_

If Switchblade was startled by his mother's vehement declaration he didn't show it. If anything, he seemed relieved. For several minutes the two traveled in silence - the only thing to break it being the gentle _swish-swish _of their taloned feet in the grass. "_Can I ask you another question?"_ Switch asked.

"_Technically that was a question,"_ Dinobot pointed out with a growl.

"_Yesterday, when I was trying to prove who I was, what was that phrase you told me to tell you mean?"_

Dinobot's steps unconsciously faltered and stopped. Switchblade halted beside her. His expression was one of uncertainty and heightened curiosity.

"'_Remember the green warrior of the Annex,'"_ Dinobot murmured, remembering the words her son had spoken the day before.

"_Yeah. What does that mean? Is it some kind of code?"_

Dinobot sighed. "_I suppose in a way it is. It's just a reference to something no one else but me would understand."_

"_Which is?"_ Switchblade impatiently prompted.

Dinobot sent her son a warning glare. Switch obediently backed down. "_Years before I joined the Maximals I disguised myself as a mech to be able to work in a wider area than I would have been able to as a femme."_

"_I know,"_ Switch nodded. _"Dad always jokes about how you were like a human cross-dresser when he first met you."_

Dinobot sent Switch a withering glare to dissuad the younger bot from interrupting her with any more humorous anecdotes. "_What no one else knows is what inspired me to change my appearance to that of a mech."_ Cycling a heavy breath of air, the warrioress's eyes became distant with nostalgic memories. _"When I first left my creators' family unit I had few credits to my name. I had to find work somewhere no one would try looking me because I knew my father would try searching for me. I originally tried finding work as a hired mercenary, but very few Predacons want to hire a female when there are dozens of trained mechs that can do that same job."_

Dinobot blew an angry huff of air through her nostrils. Even now, decades after the incident, the remembered discrimination still managed to make her mech-fluid boil. _"After several weeks of fruitless searching I was so low on credits I could barely afford to buy enough low-grade energon to sustain myself let alone secure a permanent residence that was not located in the heart of the city's seedier sectors. Finally, just when I was about to abandon hope, I happened to overhear mention of an underground fighting ring called the Annex. In it anyone wishing to fight was pitted against another fighter until only one was left standing. Bets were regularly placed on favorite fighters by the spectators. The prize for winning just one match would have been enough to support me for two weeks. I immediately sought a chance in the ring."_

"_And I'm assuming you kicked some major skid plates, right?" _Switch smirked.

Dinobot couldn't quite keep a prideful smirk of her own from twisting her lips. _"Yes,"_ she acknowledged. _"I did not win every time I entered the ring, but I won enough matches to gain a reputation as a skilled fighter with the crowd and those that organized the fights. I was a novelty - a female warrior. No one had ever heard of such a thing before in the gladiator ring. Even if I did not win the bout, the other fighter more often than not would need assistance exiting the ring."_

Switchblade snorted with amusement. "_Yep. That sounds 'bout right,"_ he said with a laugh.

Dinobot's demeanor became more reserved. _"There was one mech there, however, that I wanted to fight more than anyone else. His name was Defcon. He had a distinct green paint job that earned him the fighting moniker the Green Warrior. He was considered the best of the best. He so infrequently lost a match that many could not actually testify as to ever having seen him do so. As I worked my way up through the rankings I set my sights on him as the fighter I needed to beat to prove myself in the gladiatorial circuit. If I could defeat him, I would assume unquestioned status amongst the other fighters - mech or femme. But when I finally accumulated enough wins to justify me challenging him in battle, he refused to fight me because I was a femme. He declared that it would be improper for him to fight such a one-sided battle."_

Dinobot's eyes narrowed with remembered indignation. _"It was then that I realized no matter how many times I proved myself in the ring, I would never been taken seriously. If I had been a mech, Defcon would have fought me without question. But because I was a femme - regardless of the dozens of wins I had accumulated by then - I was not considered worth his effort. I was __**beneath**__ him. An unworthy challenge."_ An angry growl rumbled Dinobot's chest. _"It was then I realized I would never earn a place in society - even a society as brutal and uncivilized as an underground fighting ring - if I remained a femme. That was when I decided to overhaul my appearance with a fake mech superstructure and armored plates. If Defcon had not refused to fight me, I doubt I would have ever conceived of the idea."_

"_What ever happened to Defcon? Did you ever get to fight him?" _Switch asked. The young mech's facial plates were rapt with fascination.

Dinobot gave her son a decidedly evil grin. _"About two months after my final round of bodywork I returned to the gladiator circuit with my new identity and demanded to face Defcon that very night. He agreed to the match thinking it would be an easy win for him."_

"_And?"_ Switchblade coaxed like a sparkling begging to know the end of an entrancing recharge tale.

Dinobot's smirk broadened. _"I won't go into detail, but I will say that he left the ring for the very first time in his career on a stretcher and with two less limbs than he entered with. After I adopted my mech identity and defeated Defcon I was the undisputed champion of the ring, and held the title for several years until I left to join Megatron's crew."_

"_Ha!"_ Switchblade laughed merrily. _"No one's ever told me about your early fighting years before. Not even grandpa. And he __**loves**__ bragging about you"_

Dinobot froze, her spark suddenly hammering against the inside of her sparkchamber. "_My father?"_ she whispered in a strangled tone. It had been several decades since she'd last seen her sire. Not since their violent fight about her joining the military and his refusal to give his permission to do so. When she'd stormed out of her family unit's domicile she'd left with the intention of never seeing him or her mother again.

Switchblade seemed surprised by his mother's shock and studied her with confusion. _"Well, yeah. Who else? Dad's creators are dead."_

"_But how do you know Stahlhand?"_ Dinobot demanded. _"I have not seen or spoken to either of my creators in years."_

Switchblade shrugged, the motion oddly natural in his raptor form. _"After the Beast Wars ended you, dad and me went back to Cybertron. I don't know the details, but I've known granddad and grandma for, like, as long as I can remember."_

Dinobot processed this for a long moment of silence. She was startled by the rush of warmth she felt at the knowledge that her own parents had somehow been involved in her son's early years. That meant that sometime in the future after returning to Cybertron she had returned to her natal home and been accepted back into her family unit despite the way she'd left in a storm of spiteful pride. _"How do my creators fare?"_ she asked, careful to mask her curiosity with an indifferent tone. Despite the way she'd left, she'd always been close to her creators - especially her father. She'd often thought of them over the years but had never been able to muster the courage to return or contact them in any way. Her pride and the danger of her true identity being exposed were too great for her to risk them knowing where she was or what she was doing. It was better if they just believed she was dead or missing. But now, with her adult son and all his knowledge of the future at her fingertips, she was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to know more.

Switchblade winced. _"Nebby_(1) _questions like that are dangerous, mom. I've already told you more than I probably should have. The future's always changeable, so whatever I tell you might not actually happen if something major changes in this timeline while I'm here. It was one of the rules the Council gave Depthcharge and me before we left Cybertron."_

Dinobot growled with irritation. _"I do not care what kind of rules the Maximal Council gave you. I wish to know about my family. You are the Rodent's son, are you not? He has never cared much for rules or followed them in any way, and I have my doubts you are disinclined to do so yourself."_

Switchblade heaved a small sigh of defeat before eyeing Dinobot with a wry look of newfound respect. _"Dad's not the only one who likes to break the rules it seems,"_ he pointed out teasingly. _"Fine. What do you want to know? Just don't blame me if what I tell you doesn't turn out the exact same way I say. The future's always changing."_

"_How are my creators? What are they doing? Are they well?"_ The stream of questions burst out of the warrioress's mouth like a stream of water. It wasn't until she'd actually asked the questions that had been stewing inside her for last several decades that she realized just how desperately she'd been waiting for an opportunity such as this to finally know.

"_They're fine,"_ Switch shrugged. _"Granddad's still working at the factory in the manufacturing district. A couple of months before I came here he'd just gotten a promotion to plant supervisor. I think they gave him the job because of all the younger mechs working there nowadays; they need someone with a military background like grandpa to keep them in line. __**No one**__ messes with him when he'd in command mode."_ Switchblade chuckled under his breath. _"And grandma keeps busy doing occasional freelance work for large corporations that want her to test their security systems for them. I actually got her clearance to test the Maximal main Security Department's office and she found more than a dozen weak spots in the building's security."_

Dinobot quietly digested this. Lost in a daze of thought, she restarted their patrol, her pace slow and wandering. Switch fell into step beside her. The two traveled for several minutes of uninterrupted silence.

"_What of you?"_ she finally asked. _"Obviously you hold some standing within the Maximal echelon of society."_

Switchblade shrugged. _"I wouldn't know how much standing I actually have in the grand scheme of things, but I work in the Security Department of Iacon as a communications specialist and interracial liaisons officer."_ He cast his mother a quick smirk. _"It's an easy job when one of your parents is Predacon and the other Maximal and you've grown up with a foot on each side of the cultural divide."_

Dinobot studied her son apprehensively. _"Do you experience any tension in your work place because of your Predacon heritage? I have doubts it is easy working with a staff of pure-sparked Maximals at times."_ Although she'd never admitted it, ever since her son's birth she'd always felt somewhat guilty in the back of her mind knowing that her son would someday grow up and have to face the consequences of being descended from her linage.

The blue raptor shrugged. _"Eh. Not really. I get along with most everyone. Except Depthcharge. He doesn't mix well with anyone. It helps too when both your parents are considered war heroes and a number of family friends are sprinkled through the government."_

"_The Vermin and I are war heroes?"_ Dinobot was unable to keep a note of skeptical shock out of her voice.

"_Of course,"_ Switch said. "_The entire Axalon crew is. When I started the Academy your names were in all the text-files for recent history."_

The warrioress raised one reptilian eye ridge in surprise. _"Is that so?"_

Switch nodded. _"It's one of the reasons you became one of the department heads in the Internal Protection Agency - the first femme in history to hold such a position. You usually guard Maximal Council members at political conferences and on foreign dignitary trips. Just last month you oversaw security for a summit meeting between the Maximal Elders and Tri-Predacus Council."_

Dinobot was having trouble digesting all this. _"I work for the Maximal government despite my previous alliances? I find that hard to believe. No one would entrust a former Predacon with so much power within the Maximal power structure."_

"_You'd be surprised," _Switchblade said. _"Who better to anticipate how a Predacon might try to assassinate a Maximal dignitary than a former Predacon herself? You had all the skills to do the job and were a fighting Maximal crewmember in the Beast Wars. You being bonded to dad and Optimus giving his personal recommendation didn't hurt things either to prove you were loyal to the cause. Don't forget, no one except the Axalon crew knows that you're the same bot that helped Megatron steal those gold disks from the Archives. Everything up until your mech superstructure was damaged had been done under your other identity. For all those government stiffs know, there's still a rogue male member of Megatron's crew running around out there who jumped ship before Megatron took off with the disks for primitive Earth. When we returned to Cybertron most people just assumed you had joined the Axalon before Optimus followed Megatron through the transwarp tunnel."_

"_No one's told the truth of me joining Primal's crew or my true involvement in the beginning of the war?"_ Dinobot demanded, still trying to overcome her skepticism.

Switchblade shook his head. _"No. No one on the crew was going to rat you out to the authorities. Not after everything you did to help in the war." _He held one elongated finger up in front of his mouth in the universal sign for silence. His smirk was devilish. _"Mum's the word."_

Dinobot's hard drive was beginning to overheat with the effort of processing all of this. _"And what about the Rodent? Does he work for the government in your time too?"_

Switchblade made a scoffing sound in the back of his throat. _"Dad? Pit, no. He works for a private company that develops anti-hacking software."_ He gave an amused chuckle. _"Ain't no one better to write anti-hacking software than a former hacker!"_

Dinobot couldn't think of anything more to ask, and walked for almost a quarter-hour in thoughtful silence. Switchblade did not try to engage her again in conversation, and seemed happy to let her quietly lead him across the open fields and rolling hills. For as talkative as her son was, he seemed to know when to give her the peace and quiet she needed to think. The warrioress's processor literally hummed with everything he'd just told her. She was having trouble believing that such a future like the one he'd described was really what awaited her and her family. From what Switchblade had said she, Rattrap, their son and her own parents seemed to all hold respectable places in society and were free of any undue strife or want - a far different future than she would have ever imagined for herself or them.

Although the future was still volatile and able to be changed by the tiniest alteration, the warrioress felt for the first time in as long as she could remember a buoyed sense of hope that there was something worthwhile waiting for her back on their home planet - that a brighter future than just an honorable death on the battlefield lay ahead of her once this war was over.

Quietly, she glanced at the young mech walking beside her. He looked so much like her, yet was his father's son through and through. She saw her sparkmate in his mannerisms, speech and easy-going attitude. Dinobot was surprised by the sudden, wistful yearning that she'd met this older incarnation of her son when she'd still been pregnant and unsure about her feelings towards the rat and her role as a soon-to-be maternal unit. If she had, she knew she never would have felt so apprehensive or scared about where the course of her life was going.

"_Follow me,"_ she ordered in a guttural rumble. _"We head for the edge of our border."_ Then, with her son close beside her, the two raptors broke into a swift jog and sped away towards the east.

* * *

It was sometime later that evening after she and Switchblade had returned to base and everyone had parted ways for the night, that Dinobot had a moment to contemplate everything her adult son had divulged to her again. Rattrap had long since fallen into recharge and was dead to the world as she snuck out of their room to their infant son's down the hallway. Leaning down over the side of his berth, the warrioress studied the sparkling's features in the dim light of the room. She carefully reached inside and ran her hand down the curve of his helm and the length of his back. Switch warbled softly in his sleep before drifting deeper into recharge.

"_Your accent is __slightly off when you pronounce double consonants in Predacon," _she whispered to her infant son for the first in her native tongue. _"We shall have to work on that this time around when I teach you."_

To Be Continued

Please don't be lulled into a false sense of security by this chapter. Slag's about to hit the fan.

Any new thoughts on Switchblade now that he's had a little more screen time? I felt he needed some one-on-one interaction with both Dinobot and Rattrap before the plot progressed anymore. More of his background will be expounded in later chapters.

_Endnote__:_

(1) Nebby: (adj.) Pittsburghese for nosey or overly curious. Can also be used as a verb. Example: "Stop nebbing around in my business!"


	3. Ghosts of the Past

Sorry for the delay, but Life decided to hit me hard, fast and mean.

**Chapter Three: Ghosts of the Past**

Black and white images of security camera feed flitted across the computer monitor in a never ending loop. It took every shred of Switchblade's willpower not to drift off into recharge watching it. Slouched down low in his seat, the young velociraptor sat with his head held in his hand and his elbow propped on the edge of his armrest.

"This has got to be the most processor-numbing job ever," he mumbled out of the side of his mouth as the loop cycled back - once again! - to a shot of the Axalon's rear cargo bay. He'd only been manning the monitor station for three quarters of an hour now, and already he felt the restlessness of boredom kicking in. "No wonder my dad avoids monitor duty like Galactic Rust Plague."

At the computer station next to him, Cheetor chuckled under his intakes. "Well, you're the one that volunteered to help out with daily operations around the ship."

Switch groaned and restlessly shifted into a more comfortable position. The Axalon's manufacturers seemed to have made it a personal point to make the bridge's monitor chairs the least comfortable example of Cybertronian design sentiently possible. The slag-eaters…

"Yeah, but I wasn't really expecting to get saddled doing _this_." Switchblade made a dismissive gesture with his hand towards the monitors. "I thought Optimus might want me to help out with patrols or run surveillance on the Darksyde, or something like that."

Cheetor shook his head. He paused the computer-simulated weather forecast he'd been working on. "No matter what stories you might have grown up hearing, exciting stuff only once in a while 'round here. Most of the time we're stuck inside doing things like monitor duty or general maintenance on the ship."

"Hrm," Switchblade murmured. "I guess you're right. But that still doesn't change the fact I feel like I should be doing something a little more meaningful than watching perimeter cameras all day. I've been here for almost a week now and still haven't even picked up a blip of X's energy signal on the scanners."

Cheetor shrugged. "We can go for weeks sometimes without catching a Pred signature near our border. This planet's big enough to keep us from having to cross paths with Megatron's goons too often if we don't want to."

Switch restrained himself from huffing in annoyance. His gripe wasn't with Cheetor but with the situation. He'd been sent by the Maximal High Council on a mission of the highest importance, and he still hadn't even been able to pinpoint his target's location.

"You know-" Cheetor said with a sidelong glance towards Switch, "-after everything you told us about Rampage and why you're here, I gotta say I'm surprised you and Depthcharge haven't just broke into the Darksyde, guns blazing, and dragged Rampage out."

"Believe me, there's nothing I want more than to gut that miserable eight-legged psychopath with my own blades," Switchblade said with a venomous hiss. "But running headfirst into the Darksyde isn't the way to get him. Depthcharge might be even more impatient to see X dead than me, but even he knows we can't take on Rampage and the rest of Megatron's crew by ourselves. We'd get massacred if we did. That's probably the only thing that made him agree to stay with the rest of you Maximals on the Axalon. Until an opportune moment comes along, we're just going to have to sit tight and wait." Switchblade cast Cheetor a heavy look out of the corner of his optic. "I can tell Depthcharge is starting to get impatient though. If X doesn't show himself soon, Depthcharge might just decide to go rogue after all."

"What about you?" Cheetor asked. "Will you go rogue too?"

Switchblade sighed. "Depends. Maybe. I don't know… All I know for sure is I'm not gonna let X survive this war again."

Cheetor studied Switchblade for a long moment of contemplative silence. "Hey, Switch. Can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure. Shoot."

"I understand Depthcharge wanting to go after Rampage - he killed his colony. But what about you? You said he killed some friends of yours when he attacked Cybertron. Who were they?"

Switchblade tensed in his seat. He suddenly could no longer stand to meet the younger Maximal's optics, and looked away from Cheetor back towards the scrolling security feeds on the computer. The unbidden image of a mangled teal and yellow bot laying in the rubble of a burned out building flashed into his mind's eye. The memory was so vivid Switchblade swore he could still smell the acrid stench of burnt cordite and ash in the air and hear the murmured cries of dying bots somewhere in the near-distance. He still remembered with spark-wrenching clarity the vacant green optics of the fallen bot that stared, unseeing, past him towards the flame-reddened sky above. A delicate trail of mech-fluid snaked from the corner of the teal and yellow racer's mouth down the side of his cheek. A pool of half-congealed purple liquid lay beneath him, marinating his twisted corpse in a soup of his own fluids. The bot's chest was a shredded, empty cavity of darkness. The jagged edge's of his desecrated sparkchamber lay peeled back against the sides of his pectoral plates, the only remains of his spark the lingering scent of ozone. His face - so achingly similar to that of the young mech Switchblade spoke to now - was frozen in an expression of utter terror and indescribable pain. He'd still been alive when his chest had been peeled open and his sparkchamber exposed to Protoform X's hungry gaze…

Switchblade suddenly felt ill with unwanted memories. His fuel tank turned in the bottom of his abdominal cavity as if it'd just been filled with acid.

"Close friends," he softly murmured. "Ones I knew for longer than I can remember… One in particular I looked up to like an older brother."

Unable to stop himself -as if his optics were drawn to him by magnets - Switchblade looked back at Cheetor. Grief, agony and loss warred with each other for dominance as he stared at the hauntingly familiar face that stared back at him in the form of this young, rambunctious mech. Cheetor still hadn't earned the same patina of age, experience and hardship the mech Switchblade knew from his timeline. Many stellar cycles still lay ahead of this Cheetor before he became the mech Switchblade had idolized, trailed after, wished to mimic and make proud in his youth.

Somewhere, across the distance of time and space, Switch heard the ghost of his friend and sworn brother cry out for justice.

"I'm sorry," the younger version of that ghost murmured. Cheetor squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, clearly unsure how to respond to the air of melancholy suddenly surrounding Switch. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories…"

Switchblade rattled himself fully back to the present. He forced a weak smile onto his face that didn't quite reach his optics. "Don't worry 'bout it. Everything's still a little bit too fresh in my mind, know what I mean? 'Specially seeing everyone in this time like this." Switch shot Cheetor a more heartfelt smile, his demeanor becoming looser and more joking. He hesitated a moment before adding, "You in particular."

"Really?" Cheetor said. His facial plates brightened with curiosity.

Switchblade smiled. Although still painful to think about the Cheetor he'd lost to Protoform X, he still saw much of that mech in this younger, more reckless version of him and made him want to latch onto whatever fleeting image he could of his missing friend all the more.

"Most definitely. The Cheetor I knew was much more serious than you are now. I think it was because of the war, ya know? By the time I entered the Academy, you were already head of Iacon's fifth police division."

"For serious?" Cheetor's optics grew wide with disbelief. "I always wanted to join the police force. I tried applying once, but was turned down. They said I was too young and inexperienced. That was one of the reasons I joined Optimus's crew; I wanted to beef up my credentials a bit."

Switch snickered knowingly. "Trust me, once you get back to Cybertron apply again. After this war, they won't give you any grief about being inexperienced. In fact, I have it on good authority that they'll practically be _begging_ you to join them."

"Ok, now I know you're pulling my drive shaft."

"No, seriously," Switch insisted. "Once this war is over you and everyone else on the crew will be war heroes. And what police force doesn't want an acknowledged war hero in their ranks?"

"Huh," Cheetor mulled this over for a moment. "Well, that's kind of nice to know…" A smile slowly slid across his face. "Actually, that's pretty awesome to know. I'll just have to make sure I do enough for the Police force to notice me once we get back."

Switchblade chuckled. Relaxing into his seat, he threw his feet up onto the computer consol and crossed them at the ankle joints. "No worries 'bout that. You used to always like to tell me about the one time you-"

Unfortunately, Switchblade's recount was interrupted by the distinctive _thud-click_ of footsteps nearing the bridge. Both Switch and Cheetor looked over their shoulders just as Dinobot came through the doorway. Airazor followed close behind her. With one sweep of her optics, the warrioress took stock of the two mechs. Her optics immediately zeroed in on Switch's feet on the computer consol and narrowed darkly. Switchblade timidly lowered them back onto the floor.

"Hey, mom," he said with a guilty grin. "I thought you were down in the hanger bay doing maintenance checks."

"Airazor and I finished faster than expected," Dinobot replied. She folded her arms across her chest and leveled a stern glare on both Switch and Cheetor. "And what have you two been doing in that time?"

Switchblade and Cheetor exchanged glances out of the corner of their optics. Although neither of them had technically been neglecting their duties, neither of them had been particularly vigilant either.

"That's what I thought," Dinobot said. Unfolding her arms, she motioned Switchblade away from the computer with a brusque wave of her hand. "Go. Get off the bridge and go on patrol or something. At least then you'll be doing something productive instead of sitting here engaging in frivolities."

"I can't. I have monitor duty right now."

"I'll watch for you," Airazor said.

Switch turned to her. "Really?" It was impossible to completely mask his excitement.

Airazor chuckled at the young velociraptor's hopeful look of relief. "Go," she smiled.

"You are seriously the best," Switchblade said as he scrambled out of the monitor chair. Striding up to her he drew her into a quick, one-armed embrace against his side. "You're my new number-one bot."

The flier's face flushed with a rush of mech-fluid as Switch released her. She giggled self-consciously. "Such a sweet talker. You could smooze Unicron himself with a tongue like that."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Switch grinned.

Dinobot turned her attention back towards Cheetor. "You too." Her tone left no room for argument.

"Okay," the racer mumbled, timidly slinking out of his seat after Switchblade. They transforming into their respective beast modes and squeezed into the nearest lift together. Airazor lifted her hand to them in farewell as they dropped out of sight.

A cloudless blue sky greeted them outside the ship. The sun was already nearing the zenith of its upwards arc. The quantum surge-scorched ground shimmered with the oily mirage of heat vapors. Late summer sunshine instantly swallowed Switchblade as he emerged from under the Axalon's belly. He stretched appreciatively, soaking in the warmth. He puffed up the plume of feathers on his head and elbows and shook them in the breeze. The dark blue raptor stripes crisscrossing his back quickly grew warm in the simmering heat. After spending the entire morning cramped inside the ship, the open air and warmth was a welcome indulgence.

"Let's go!" he called over his shoulder. Without waiting to see if the younger mech actually followed or not, Switch broke into a swift jog. "I want to stretch my legs a bit."

Cheetor was almost instantly by his side, his turbine jets allowing him to easily keep pace with Switch's stride. His feet barely even seemed to touch the ground. "I hear you! Come on! Let's race!"

Letting himself become caught up in the moment - relishing this unforeseen opportunity to relive a moment from his past when he and Cheetor used to race each other when he was still a youngling - Switch eagerly accepted. "You're on! First to the top of the next rise wins."

Like two torpedoes, Switchblade and Cheetor sped across the open fields of dust, rock and scrub grass. The race was short. Evenly matched in speed, the two reached the top of the rise at almost the same time. Switchblade, however, managed to secure victory by pulling ahead several feet at the very last moment. The two skid to a stop, their feet kicking up a small cloud of dirt around them.

"No fair! You cheated!" was Cheetor's expected cry of protest.

Switch snickered. Even though separated by almost three-quarters of a century from the mech Switchblade knew and the mech standing before him, Cheetor was still the exact same competitive bot as the one Switch had grown up knowing.

"Don't blame me, dude. It's not my fault cheetahs aren't built to run long distances. You might be faster than me in short sprints, but anything farther than 500 meters you stall out." Switchblade gave Cheetor a decidedly smug look. "Velociraptors have the advantage of being able to maintain pace longer."

Cheetor gave him a sour look.

_Always the sore loser_, Switch mused with a fond chuckle.

"Whatever…" the younger racer muttered.

Their excess energy and boredom now spent, the two resumed their patrol in a slower, more serious pace. As fun as that had been, they still had a job to do. Switch had no desire to incur anymore of his mother's wrath that day, nor was he willing to risk endangering both him and Cheetor by dropping his guard while in the open on an alien planet with the potential for enemy attack everywhere. _Especially_ when that enemy could be Protoform X. He liked his occasional fun, but his mother had taught him to be vigilant and aware whilst in the field.

For several minutes the two traveled in companionable silence before Cheetor tentatively spoke up.

"Hey, Switch. Can I ask you something else?"

"Of course."

"What exactly is up with you and Airazor?"

Switchblade glanced down at his companion, his head cocked at an inquisitive angle. "What are you talking about?"

Cheetor cleared his intake line uncomfortably. "You and Airazor. Do you… have some kind of crush on her or something?"

Switchblade almost choked. "What? No! She used to watch me as a sparkling. She's like my aunt. Why would you say something like that?"

Cheetor winced, dropping his head in embarrassment. "I don't know. It's just whenever you're around her you always act… different, you know? Kind of flirty. Like how you hugged her before we left."

Realization came to Switchblade. His previous high of carefree euphoria from his and Cheetor's race was replaced by a quiet seriousness. "Oh." Shuffling to a stop, Switch glanced down at Cheetor as the younger mech came to a halt beside him. "It's just that acting like that's the only way I know how to make Airazor smile."

Cheetor stared at him, confused and waiting for more explanation.

Heaving a heavy sigh, Switchblade turned to stare into the distance. "In my time, after yinz guys beat Megatron, everyone returned to Cybertron. Everyone except Tigatron. His body was never recovered or any sign of him ever seen again after he disappeared in that alien transmission. I never met Tigatron - obviously - but Airazor used to always talk about him while I was growing up. She loved him like he was her sparkmate, even though they were never actually bonded. She never got over losing him.

"The Airazor here's different from the Airazor in my time. At least here I can still get an actual laugh out of her. In my time, she's so quiet and lonely. Half the time I'm lucky if I can just get her to crack a smile. She's like a recluse - doesn't like to let anyone get too close to her. My family's really the only ones from the old crew she keeps in contact with. She's just kind of faded away from everyone else. I think if it wasn't for my mom browbeating her to keep going, she would've just given up stellar cycles ago."

Switchblade slowly looked back at Cheetor, his expression sad. "I guess I just like the idea of giving my aunt Airazor something to laugh about."

"That's… so sad." Cheetor seemed unable to think of anything else to say.

Switchblade agreed. It was sad. And mostly because there was nothing he or anyone else could do to make it better. Even in this time he could do nothing more than impotently stand by and watch the femme he loved like an aunt suffer in silent loneliness and pain.

With that thought weighting heavily on both their processors, the two resumed their patrol. After several hundred feet Switch forced himself to start up another conversation. The content of it was meaningless and purposely focused on the mundane - the weather, ideal gossip about other crewmembers, etcetera. Cheetor seemed more than happy to go along with Switch's lead and refrained from asking any more questions he might not like the answers to. In this one instance, it seemed, the cat had chosen not to let curiosity get the best of him. For this, Switch was glad. He had no desire to revisit anymore painful memories that day or be forced to tell Cheetor about the future that awaited him if he and Depthcharge were unsuccessful. No one, he felt, should have to carry the burden of knowing the time and manner of their own death, especially a death as gruesome as one at the hands of Protoform X…

Within an hour the two reached the eastern edge of Maximal territory. A rocky line of hills stretched along the Predacon side of the border. Switchblade eyed the imaginary line of separation. Somewhere, on the other side of those craggy hills, lay the Predacon warship and, inside of it, the one he'd come to planet Earth to hunt. A surge of irritated frustration washed over Switch He was so close. He swore he could almost smell X he was so close. Yet he was still so far away. How much longer before he was finally able to sink his blades into X's cured spark and claim justice for the friend and brother he'd lost? How much longer could he afford to sit and wait while the unholy abomination that was Protoform X continued to function?

"Come on," Switchblade said, abruptly veering towards the hills.

"Whoa! Switch, where you going? That's Pred territory!"

"I know. I want to find a path through the hills to the Darksyde. If Depthcharge and I end up having to go after X ourselves, I want to know the fastest way to him. Getting reconnaissance on the enemy's stronghold can never hurt."

Cheetor looked unsure. "If the others find out we snuck into Predacon territory without direct orders, Optimus is going to give us the right act about it when we get back to the Axalon."

"I'd actually be more concerned about my mom finding out…" Switchblade mumbled under his breath. Glancing back over his shoulder he gave the younger mech a pleading look. "I _need _firsthand knowledge of the Darksyde and its surrounding land, Cheetor. If I don't, I'll be going in blind if Depthcharge and I have to go in to flush X out. You and everybody else on the crew already know the layout of the land, but I don't and that's a liability. In this timeline I'm still a sparkling. I've never even been out of sight of the Axalon yet. I have no working knowledge of this place. Trust me. I'm doing this for you and everyone else I know in my time. Finding out where X is hiding is the entire reason I came here."

Cheetor still seemed torn by indecision. But then with a nod, he grinned. "Alright. But if we get caught, I'm blaming everything on you."

Switchblade smirked. "There's the rule-breaker I know."

"Says the lug nut calling the sparkplug black."

"Only because I had the best teacher growing up."

There was a noticeable change in the air almost as soon as Switchblade and Cheetor slunk across the invisible line dividing Maximal and Predacon land. Like the jagged black teeth of some subterranean leviathan lurking just beneath the rocky soil, the hills closed in around them. They were immediately swallowed in pitch-black shadows and gloomy half-light. After several hundred feet the hills began to narrow, squeezing Switchblade and Cheetor closer and closer together until they were forced to walk so close that their shoulders almost touched. The sky became nothing more than a narrow streak of muted blue above them. Switchblade had the sudden thought that this must be the same view as someone trapped at the bottom of a well looking up at the shrunken patch of light hovering so impossibly high above them - offering reassurance that there still existed a place in the world not swathed in claustrophobic darkness, yet remained so tantalizingly far out of reach to that lost soul.

Switchblade's eyes darted back and forth around the narrow landscape, scanning both sides of the surrounding cliffs and hilltops for signs of enemy attack. His ears were tuned to their highest receptive frequency. He and Cheetor would be at a distinct disadvantage should any Predacon spot them while traveling through the hills' narrows valleys and ravines. They'd be sitting ducks if any flier happened to fly past overhead. It'd be as easy as laser-shooting scraplets in an airlock to take him and Cheetor out in their current positions. Whispers of his mother's warrior training ran like an endless loop of admonishments in the back of his processor.

_Don't allow yourself to become boxed in… Always leave yourself a clear route of retreat… Never, _never_, allow your enemy to gain the higher ground… To do so means instant death on the battlefield…_

And he and Cheetor were now deep inside the heart of enemy territory. Every rock ledge and boulder had the potential of becoming just what Dinobot had warned him about.

Switchblade's neural lines were almost humming with agitation by the time he and Cheetor finally broke free of the hills into open air. He felt a small wave of relief at finally being free of the confining space, but his senses still remained on high alert.

For there, perhaps two miles away in the middle of an active lava flow, rested the twisted remains of the Predacons' warship. Behind the ship, a fire tipped mountain towered over the desolate land. A ripple-patterned plain of cooled magma stretched between the two trespassers and the Darksyde - dotted here and there by boulders and other rocky debris.

Switchblade transformed with a soft command to his bi-pedal form. "Come on," he said, slipping out from the shadow of the hills with the grace of an assassin. He reached with both hands over his shoulders and un-subspaced a pair of twin fighting knives from his back. The twenty-inch lengths of steel gleamed dully in the overcast light. The permanent cloud cover of noxious black fumes from the volcano blocked out any and all direct sunlight. Jogging towards the nearest bolder with both knives held down and out from his body in a ready position, Switchblade crouched behind it for cover. He stared across the cooled lava plain towards the Darksyde.

"Switch," Cheetor called after him in a hushed but frantic tone. He slunk out from between the craggy hills to join his companion behind the rock. There, he too transformed. "I don't know if we should go any farther. We found a way through the hills. You know how to get here now. We should go back before someone spots us. This is too close."

"No," Switch shook his head. His optics were locked on the hulking warship in the distance. "I want to make sure X is actually here."

"Switch!" Cheetor hissed through his teeth.

The young raptor ignored his plea. He was on a mission. And no one - not even his adopted older brother - was going to stop him. It was for Cheetor and everyone else killed in X's attacks that he was even there. Slipping out from behind the rock, he jogging to the next nearest rock cover. There was a long moment's hesitation before Cheetor reluctantly followed after him.

It was slow, cautious going but the Darksyde eventually began to loom closer. Switchblade finally stopped about three-quarters of a mile from the ship. Any closer he ran the risk of tripping the warship's security grid. Cheetor knelt beside him behind a large outcrop of heat-warped rocks, his body tense.

Switchblade carefully craned the upper part of his body around the side of the rocks. He could just make out the ship's underbelly from the distance. He activated his optics' telescopic lens. Details of the ship - hatchways, gun turrets and even scorched sections of hull - instantly sprung into sharp relief against the murky background of lava and volcanic rock.

"What do you see?" Cheetor whispered.

"Nothing so far. Everything looks quiet. I don't even see- Wait." A momentary flash of red darted in and then out of the corner of his visual readout. Switchblade thought it looked like the flash of armor. He immediately zeroed in on it. He was looking down the length of the ship towards what appeared to be the Darksyde's rear loading bay. Because of the angle he and Cheetor were at and a number of landing struts blocking his view he couldn't tell for sure, though. Switchblade magnified the intensity of his visual input. Could it be? He thought he'd just seen-

There! Another flash of red armor near the back of the ship. Someone was walking around near the Darksyde's rear loading bay, flitting in and out of sight between the ship's landing struts. There were only two of Megatron's crew who Switchblade knew had red armor.

"It's X," he snarled as he returned his optics to their regular settings. He unconsciously gripped his blades tighter. "He's here."

A subdued look of alarm flew across Cheetor's facial plates. "We need to get out of here, Switch. We can't take on all of Megatron's goons, plus whatever firepower their ship is packing. It might be grounded but it's still got to have lasers or some other kind of built-in security system."

Switchblade knew Cheetor was right. The two of them had no chance of fighting the entire Predacon crew by themselves. It would be best to retreat and share his finding with Depthcharge so they could plan their first plan of attack on Protoform X.

But Switch hesitated.

X was so close. He was right there. Unsuspecting and unaware that justice had finally come to claim retribution for those killed by his hands. Switch's hold on his fighting knives had become crushing. He could feel the raised edges of their grips beginning to dig into the soft protomatter of his palms. He suspected he would have to buff out the indented patterns of them from his hands later. His teeth ground together in angry indecision. X was _right_ there! Right in front of him like some cosmic coincidence orchestrated by Primus to help Switchblade avenge his slain children. He could end this all right here. Right now. If he could somehow get closer and take X by surprise, then maybe-

"Well, well, well. Wha'd we have here? Looks like a coupl'a trespassin' varmits ta me!"

Switchblade was so deep in vengeful thought that he hadn't even realized there was another there with him and Cheetor until just now. He violently startled and whirled around towards the voice. He raised his fighting knives in defense but was unprepared to fend off the blast of bright green energy that exploded against his right side.

Switchblade screamed as searing white pain blossomed across his side. His visual readout momentarily flickered black. From his wound, trails of pain began to radiate out through the rest of his body as though acid was running through his mech lines. He was vaguely aware of one of his knives slipping from his hand as he crumpled backwards against the rock wall. A sickening weakness washed over him, making his processor spin and his world tilt on end. He could no longer keep a grip on his remaining knife and could only watch in a disembodied trance as it slowly tumbled out of his hand and clattered on the ground to join its twin. His entire body felt as though it was being consumed by liquid fire. All his tension cables felt as if they'd been turned to low-grade rubber. Like sinking into a pit of quicksand Switchblade felt his hold on consciousness begin to slip away from him.

_Cyber toxin of some kind_, he numbly realized. Whatever he'd been hit with was fast-acting and powerful. He'd never experienced anything like it before.

He heard a muffled shout from somewhere beside him - like someone crying out underwater, the sound distant and distorted. There was another hollow thump and an answering cry of pain. In his fading daze of tenuous consciousness Switchblade felt a body heavily slump against him.

_Cheetor…_

The edges of his visual readout were becoming blurry.

A yellow and teal face loomed down in front of Switchblade. Despite the facemask covering the lower portion of his face Switch could still see the look of sadistic glee in his attacker's optics.

"Looks like I bagged me some Maxies!" Quickstrike crowed in victory. Chuckling, the fuzor leaned down closer to Switchblade to examine his catch. The raptor was fading too quickly under the toxin's poison to even manage a defiant glare. He was barely hanging onto the edge of conscious. The entire right side of his body burned from the cyber-toxin now coursing through his system. Quickstrike's expression lit with confusion and then surprise. "But who're you?" he wondered out loud as Switchblade lost the battle against the toxin and slowly began to drift offline. "Must be from one of dem pods. Guess I'll just drag yeh ta Megatron and let him figure out wha'ta do with yeh…"

_To be continued…_

Please review!


	4. First Meetings

Quick update. Guess it's to make up for my long absence.

**Chapter Four****: First Meetings**

Megatron stared at the two unconscious Maximals. They lay on the floor of two separate cages suspended half a dozen feet above a stream of flowing red magma. The warlord edged his hover platform closer to better see his captives. While he immediately recognized the annoying little racer who always somehow managed to elude termination, he had no idea who the mech with him was. Megatron couldn't shake the feeling he should know who he was. There was something eerily familiar about him he couldn't immediately place. Was this mech from a stasis pod? If he was then why hadn't the Darksyde's scanner's picked up one falling out of orbit? Could he somehow be connected to that strange energy signature they'd picked up on their instruments the week before - the energy signature Terrorsaur and Waspinator had been unable to locate?

These were questions he needed answers to. Who knew what this new mech meant to the ever-shifting power balance between the Maximal and Predacon factions. Were there more Maximals fighting for Optimus he didn't know about? He needed to know who this mech was and what his presence meant to the war plan. Now.

"You said you caught them just outside the Darksyde's outer defense grid?" Megatron said, not taking his optics off the two prone figures.

Quickstrike stood on another hover platform immediately to his left. "Yep. Caught 'em completely unawares. Shot 'em both quick with a round of cyber-venom before they could even draw their own weapons," the transmetal fuzor proudly boasted.

A soft growl rumbled close to Megatron's right. His consort, Talon, shared the platform with him. Her tail agitatedly lashed the air behind her. Her body was rigid with tension as she shuffled closer to the warlord's side. "How did they get so close to the ship without any of our perimeter cameras detecting them?" she snarled as she glared at the two unconscious Maximals. "How were they not detected invading our territory sooner?"

"That is a very good question, yes," Megatron growled, sweeping his optics in a wide circle around the cages. The rest of the crew were gathered there on several more hover platforms. "A breach of this kind can only lead me to believe that my men were not performing their duties adequately."

"Don't look at me!" Terrorsaur screeched. He'd been on monitor duty when the two Maximals had been apprehended. "I didn't see any hide or hair of those two on my screens! They must have come in through some kind of blind spot."

"For some reason, I highly doubt that," Megatron rumbled. The angry back and forth swipe of Talon's tail beside him seconded the tyrant's assessment.

"If I had been on patrol at the time, my Lady and Liege, those two Maximals would have never even gotten within sight of the ship!" Inferno loudly declared.

"Why do we quibble over how these Maximals got here?" Rampage growled from a different hover platform to Megatron's right. "They are here, so let's eat their sparks and be done with it."

The corners of Megatron's optics narrowed with thinly veiled revulsion. No matter how much of an asset Rampage and his immortal spark were to his fighting force, it still was not enough to make Megatron completely able to turn a blind eye on some of the more disturbing aspects of Rampage's character.

"No," Megatron said, shaking his helm. "I want to know who this new mech is before I so carelessly dispose of him. If he is from one of the Maximals' stasis pods, perhaps he can still be persuaded to join our cause." The warlord glanced to his right where Tarantulas stood on another hover platform. "Give them both the antidote."

"As you wish, Megatron," the scientist said. He held up a nasty looking syringe filled with whitish liquid. Angling his platform closer to the closest of the two cages - the one containing the unfamiliar mech - Tarantulas reached between the metal bars and drew the mech's arms close enough to inject a dose of anti-venom between the plates of his armor. He repeated the action on the Maximal's youngling racer. His mission done, Tarantulas maneuvered his platform back to its original orbit around the cages.

Within moments, the two Maximals began to stir.

Talon edged closer to Megatron and slipped her arm around the crook of his elbow, pressing herself against his side. The action was a show of power, asserting herself as Megatron's equal and backup for when their unwelcome guests woke. Instead of being greeted by one of the Predacons' leaders, they would instead be met with both Megatron and his consort as a united front. To anyone, both ally and enemy alike, it would be an intimidating image to wake up to.

The blue mech came to his senses first. His optics - a startling deep red hue reminiscent of the original Decepticons' - flickered online. Groaning through this vents, he sluggishly pushed himself up onto his elbows, then his knees. He held his helm in his hand for a moment as though struggling to get his bearings before he seemed to realize where he was. With a start he completely woke with a gasp. All his tension cables seemed to freeze as his optics wildly darted from side to side to take in his new surroundings. They finally came to rest on Megatron and Talon on the other side of the steel bars surrounding him.

From the other cage, Cheetor groggily pushed himself up from the ground and looked around in a bewildered daze.

"Welcome to the Darksyde," Megatron darkly intoned. Beside him, Talon glared her own greeting. Her finger blades tightened around his forearm as though itching to lash out and draw mech-fluid.

"Megatron," the blue mech growled. His dark red optics narrowed as he forced himself to his feet to stand and face him. Megatron realized with a start the mech's feet sported eight-inch long talons on either of his insteps. The niggling feeling he should know who this bot was washed over once again.

"You were caught on Predacon land. Under Cybertronian war laws, I have the right to immediately execute you."

"So why didn't you?' the blue mech spat. His optics were narrowed in challenge. Despite Quickstrike's cyber-venom he seemed to be recovering his cognitive functions quickly.

Megatron had to give it to the mech. Although young and clearly new to the Beast Wars, he had a vicious spunk to him Megatron couldn't help but like. He chuckled appreciatively. "Because I don't like the idea of letting good talent go to waste. You managed to sneak past the Darksyde's outer defenses without being detected almost unto its front door. This kind of talent I could use within my army."

The blue mech snorted in disgust. "Don't fantasize for a moment I'd ever think about join you."

Talon snarled beside him. "Be careful whom you insult with your brash declarations, young one. Lord Megatron could end your function with but a single word. I'd gladly gut your protoform if he so ordered it."

The blue mech's optics narrowed to two dangerous slits of red as he regarded Dinobot's clone. "I'll take my chances."

"Switchblade," Cheetor hissed from the other cage. "What are you doing? Don't make them mad."

_Switchblade._

The name stirred in Megatron an almost forgotten memory. He'd heard this name before. From his own ex-lieutenant, in fact. When he and his men had attacked the Axalon in search of the golden disk Dinobot had stolen from him. Talon had been holding his ex-lieutenant's half-breed son hostage, her sharpened finger blades held against his neck. Dinobot had screamed a name. The name of her and the Maximal rodent's son.

_Switchblade._

Like a kick to the intake tank, Megatron suddenly recognized the sharp curves of the mech's facial plates and build. The aura of strength that seemed to radiate from every corner of his being. They were just like those of the femme he'd lost to the Maximal spy.

"Impossible!" Megatron hissed. His optics regarded the feather-crested mech in startled shock. He reared backwards from the cage half a step.

Talon has also seemed to have made a connection between the name and her genetic originator's son and stared at him with wide optics. "What devilry is this?" she hissed. "Is he some kind of clone?"

The mech - Switchblade - sneered at Megatron and Talon in open distain. "I am no clone." He glared directly at Talon. "I'm not some genetically altered monster."

Talon hissed, her entire being bristling like an angry predator. Megatron hastily stroked the forearm wrapped around his elbow to stop his consort from lunging at the impudent newcomer. Talon reluctantly calmed under his touch. With renewed interest, Megatron leaned closer to the cage. He could now see without any bit of doubt the similarities between this youngster and his former lieutenant. His build. His optics. His face. The curved talons of bone on either of his insteps. All of them were Dinobot's.

"How is this possible?" he wondered out loud. "Did the Maximals do something to speed your growth?" He tilted his head to the side as a new thought struck him. "Is Optimus Primal so desperate for reinforcements that he convinced Dinobot to offer her own son to him as a soldier?"

By now the rest of the Predacon crew had also pieced together the identity of the blue mech and stared at him in silent fascination.

Switchblade regarded Megatron with a look of utter loathing. The upper right corner of his lip curled back from his teeth in a sneer. "My mother would never do something like that to me."

"Then how are you here?" Megatron hissed. "You should be nothing but a sparkling - and a tiny one at that thanks to that garbage-eating rodent your mother chose for a mate."

Switchblade snarled, his optics flashing a murderous red. The plume of feathers on his helm and elbows bristled. "Do _not_ insult my father in front of me," he growled in a voice so low the air seemed to literally vibrate around him. Megatron was sure the glare the young mech speared him with would have turned him into a molten pool of slag if it were physically possible. He wondered briefly if he'd inherited Dinobot's optic lasers.

From one of the other hover platforms, Megatron heard Waspinator give a frightened warble.

Megatron leaned closer to the cage, meeting Switchblade's gaze undaunted. "Then answer my question, half-breed."

The mech growled at the insult but forced himself to calm down. "I am from seventy years in the future of when the Axalon and the Darksyde left Cybertron. I came back to this time using transwarp technology similar to the one that brought yinz here."

Megatron blinked in surprise. This wasn't the answer he'd been expecting. "Why are you here? Certainly there must be some reason for you coming back to this time."

"That's none of your business," Switchblade spat.

Megatron, however, did not miss the way the young mech's optics darted a quick glance towards the hover platform containing Rampage and Inferno. The gesture was unconscious, but heavy with meaning.

_Interesting,_ Megatron thought. He stored it away in his memory bank for further analysis later. He chose not to bother following that line of questioning anymore for the time being, though. If this Switchblade was anything like his maternal unit, or possessed even a fraction of Dinobot's stubbornness, it would be nothing but a waste of time to try to get any more information out of him right now.

Leaning closer, the warlord studied the young mech through the bars of the cage with renewed curiosity. He stared at Switchblade, making a show of tilting his head from side to side as he scrutinized him up and down. He gave the mech credit. Not once did Switchblade flinch or fidget even a tension cable under Megatron's gaze. He was definitely Dinobot's son.

"It is almost unnerving how much you look like your mother," Megatron noted. "I can see almost no trace of the rodent in your features. If I didn't know better I could have mistaken you for a full-sparked Predacon."

Switchblade offered Megatron a tight lipped smile that came across condescending and snide. "Don't worry. I might not look anything like my dad but I definitely took after him in other ways."

Megatron frowned. "So I see," he sneered. He gave Switchblade another appraising look. "Still… I can't help but wonder what you would have looked like if I had been successful in claiming Dinobot as my consort and been your sire instead. I wonder if you would have still retained so many of her features."

Switchblade's facial plate contorted into an expression of violent revulsion. He made a show out of clutching his abdomen with one hand and covering his mouth with the other. "Please don't make me sick. I'm already queasy to my fuel tank enough as it is from that cyber-toxin without you piling on."

Megatron growled under his intakes. _Impudent little half-breed. He is definitely the Rat's offspring._

"Tell me about the future," he angrily demanded. "Obviously you came here for some important reason." A wonderful thought occurred to him. "Perhaps you came here to stop me from winning the Beast Wars? Is that it? In the future I control Cybertron and you think coming back in time is the only way to stop me before I become so powerful?" The idea made an excited thrill go down the length of Megatron's spinal strut.

The young mech snorted with a harsh guffaw of mocking laughter. His lips twisted back from his teeth in a condescending sneer. "Ha! You wish. I'm technically not suppose to talk about what happens in the future, but ya know what? I'm going to make an exception just for you today." Resting one elbow against the bars, Switchblade leaned closer to Megatron as if to whisper a secret to him. "You lose the Beast Wars _horribly._"

Megatron's expression involuntarily fell.

Sniggering, Switchblade continued. "Not only do you lose the Beast Wars, but when Optimus's crew returns to Cybertron you are declared a rogue criminal not only by the Maximal High Council, but by the Predacon Tri-Predacus Council too. You might have escaped being arrested after the war, but in my time you're hunted by Maximals and Predacons alike. You have no real fighting forces to your name except a handful of stupid, low-life criminals and no victories to claim except a few minor thefts and raids. But mostly you spend your time running away from the authorities - both Maximal and Predacon - and hiding on whatever backwater colony or rundown planet you can find until it's safe to sneak off to your next hideaway. You're nothing but a two-bit petty criminal. It's pathetic."

"You lie," Megatron hissed. A involuntary rush of heat spread through his body. It took him a moment to realize the sensation was a mixture of embarrassment and horror at this unwelcome glimpse into the future.

"Everyday of my life," Switchblade smiled. "But not about this."

Gritting his teeth together, Megatron slammed his fist against the side of the cage beside Switchblade's face. The entire cage shuddered under the blow and swung back and forth on the chain tethering it to the ship's ceiling. Switchblade had to wildly cart wheel his arms to keep from stumbling to the floor. He regained his balance and shot Megatron an annoyed glare.

"Hey! Don't take it out on me you're such a bad leader. It's not my fault. I'm just telling you what you wanted to know."

Megatron had to take several deep intakes before he trusted himself enough to speak. His hands were clenched so tightly into fists he felt the protomatter of his palms begin to warp under the pressure. "You have a sharp tongue just like your sire. And just like him you don't know when to keep your mouth shut."

Switchblade smirked as though he considered that a compliment. "So I've been told."

Megatron growled through this teeth. "Your mother should have taught you some more manners. You seem to forget who holds the power here. I could easily just leave you and the kitten in these cages to rot until I think of what to do with you."

"Oh don't worry yourself about lil ol' me. I can entertain myself," Switchblade assured him. Reaching up to the side of his head, he tapped on his helm's internal playback function. The fast-paced beat of some unfamiliar music assaulted Megatron's audios. "Early twenty-first century Earth music," Switchblade explained over the alien din of noise. "Got to admit it has a catchy beat."

Megatron felt his dentals begin to warp under the strain of his clenched jaw plate. It took every bit of self-control he possessed not to lunge at the cage and try to rip his former lieutenant's son to scrap metal through the bars.

"What should we do with them, my Lord?" Talon leaned closer to be heard over the jarring sounds of their captive's playback.

Megatron glared at the cages. Switchblade gave him a taunting grin through the bars. The warlord grit his teeth together with a growl. "Leave them for now. If nothing else they will be valuable bargaining tools with the Maximals. We've already seen what lengths Dinobot will go to to protect her half-breed progeny." He shot Switchblade a scathing look out of the corner of his optic. "Certainly she will do the same for her son now. We will use her maternal programming against her and the rest of her Maximal comrades."

"Why keep them alive when we could just as easily eat them and be done with it?" Rampage spoke up. He eyed the two prisoners hungrily. "These two would make a fine meal."

Over the music still pumping out of the side of Switchblade's helm Megatron heard Dinobot's son growl deep in the back of his throat. He edged to the other side of his cage closer to his Maximal companion. He glared at Rampage through the bars as if the very fires of the Pit burned behind his optic lens. Every corner of his superstructure bristled in anticipation of battle.

"Lord Megatron ordered that they be kept as hostages," Talon snarled. "They are not to be harmed. At least not yet."

Rampage spat in disgust. "I only want a limb. Maybe a leg off the racer, or a bite off the blue one's shoulder. I'm sure they're both juicy with mech-fluid. And…" Rampage delicately sniffed the air. "Mmmm, I can smell the anger stewing inside the blue one. It's practically rolling off of him. Anger always gives protomatter a special tang. It would be such a shame not to taste such a treat…" Almost as if he was too consumed in his cannibalistic thoughts to be aware of what he was doing, Rampage edged his hover platform closer and leaned in towards the side of Switchblade's cage.

Inside the cage Switchblade growled, sinking into a battle stance. His fingers flexed threateningly at his sides. The dancing orange light from the lava beneath the cages caught his fingers' talons and reflected off their sharpened tips. On the other side of the room Waspinator ducked behind Terrorsaur with a fearful warble.

Before Megatron could shout or do anything to remind Rampage of his orders, the immortal transmetal fell to the top of his platform as if his knees had been knocked out from under him with the swipe of a crowbar. He writhed and thrashed, waves of blue electricity crackling up and down his body. Finally after what felt like an eternity, the electricity disappeared and Rampage collapsed against the platform. There was a moment's pause before he seemed to come back to himself and weakly tried to push himself onto his elbows. No one moved to help him.

Beside Megatron, Talon held Rampage's disembodied spark between her claws. Its shimmery blue surface flickered and pulsed as if in pain inside its makeshift sparkchamber. Shards of raw energon lined the chamber, their tips still partially sunk into its outer aurora. Talon flexed her fingers, squeezing the two sides of the device together several more centimeters. Rampage grit his mandibles together and swallowed back a cry of pain. She held it close for several seconds before completely releasing her hold on it. Rampage slumped to his forearms, gasping in relief.

"That last squeeze was to remind you who owns you," Talon snarled. "Lord Megatron said neither of the Maximals are to be harmed, and you will do as he commands. Until they have outlived their usefulness they are off limits to your perverse hungers. Understand?"

Rampage glared fire at Talon, hatred rolling off him in palpable waves. But he obediently nodded his head. "Yes…"

"Come," Megatron said, holding his elbow back out to Talon as she subspaced Rampage's spark back into her right hip compartment. Talon slid her arm around his and pressed herself against Megatron's side like the obedient consort she was. "Let us leave our guests to themselves so they can mull their situation over a bit." He spared Switchblade one last glare.

"Hurry back," Switchblade sweetly called after him with a smirk through the bars. He twiddled his fingers at him in farewell.

Growling, Megatron maneuvered his hover platform to the edge of the nearest corridor that led into the main part of the ship. Talon had to hurry to keep up with the warlord's angry stride as he stormed off the platform into the ship's darkness.

The brat was _definitely_ the Rat's son…

* * *

Switchblade flicked off his internal playback as the last of the Predacons maneuvered their hover platforms away and disappeared from the room. The silence was almost deafening in the wake of his Terran music.

"Switch!" Cheetor cried from the other cage. "We are in so much trouble right now. I _told_ you we shouldn't have come any closer."

Switchblade heaved a heavy sigh. "I know. I'm sorry. I screwed up."

Cheetor gave a sigh of his own. "You know, this is probably the first time I've gotten in trouble and it _wasn't_ my fault."

Switch winced. "Again, sorry. You can yell at me as much as you want later, but right now we need to get out of here. No matter what Megatron told him, I have a feeling Protoform X'll be back. And sooner rather than later." As much as Switch tried to hide it, his voice trembled at the name of his enemy. He still remembered the hungry gleam in the psychopath's optics as he'd stared at him through the bars of his cage. If his mother's clone hadn't stopped X he wasn't sure how much of a chance he would have actually stood against Protoform X. The Cheetor of his timeline and countless squads of trained Enforcers had gone up against him and been cut down as if they were nothing more than sparklings with toy lasers. So what chance did he realistically have against X by himself? The odds were not in his favor. He'd been so stupid. What had he been thinking? What had he been planning to actually do sneaking so close to the Darksyde? That he'd somehow sneak up on Protoform X and take him out by himself? He more than anyone else in this time should know what X was capable of and how hard it was to kill him. And now because he'd let his emotions get the better of him and forgot all the precautions and warnings he'd been given before leaving Cybertron, he'd managed to get not only himself but also Cheetor captured by the enemy. Megatron now knew he existed and was from the future. Could Megatron somehow use that information against his parents and the rest of the crew? How many people had he put in danger by his rash mistake?

"Primus, I'm such an idiot," he mumbled, running a hand through his feathered crest. It was something he only did when he was nervous or upset. All his previous confidence and suave cool had disappeared now that there was no one else but Cheetor to see. He'd always been told he had a gift for acting. "I've made such a mess of things…"

"It's nothing I haven't done myself, so I'm not about to judge you," Cheetor said from the other cage.

"Like that time you got caught by Tarantulas and my dad had to come save you?"

Cheetor stared at him, startled. "How do you-?"

Switch gave him a humorless smile, his optics tired. "I'm from the future, remember? I know more about you than you probably want me to." Sighing, Switchblade looked around the inside of the metal cage he'd been imprisoned. Besides the thick metal bars, the cage was completely featureless. "Let's see if we can't pull off an impressive escape you can put into your Enforcer application when you get back to Cybertron."

"You got any good ideas?" Cheetor asked, looking around the inside of his own cage.

"Maybe one," Switch smirked. Sharply twisting both of his wrists to the outside, two razor-edged blades sprung from their hidden compartments on the top of both his forearms.

Cheetor stared, his jaw plate hanging slightly open. "Where did those come from?"

Switch gave him a devilish smile. "My parents named me Switchblade for a reason. I may not be an actual warrior but my mom still taught me some tricks of the trade. Like how you should always have something hidden up your sleeves the enemy isn't expecting."

Cheetor nodded appreciatively. "Your mom's so cool."

Switchblade turned his attention to the steel bars separating him and Cheetor. He scratched the side of one with the tip of his claw. His talon left a faint scratch across the gunmetal gray surface. "Looks like it's just tempered steel. Shouldn't be too hard to cut through. Stand back in case they have some kind of extra security we don't know about hidden inside the bars. I'd hate to find out they're actually electrified." Cheetor did as he was told and edged to the far side of his own cage. Switch braced his feet shoulder width apart in a strong stance. Then with a grunt, he slashed the back of his bladed forearm at the metal bars. There was a sharp _clang_ as metal met metal, and then the groan of the bars giving way under his hand. Switchblade pulled his arm back to survey the damage. He'd managed to completely slice through three of the bars. With another swipe of his arm Switch cut out their bottoms and sent the severed lengths of steel tumbling into the river of lava below.

"Nice," Cheetor smiled from the other cage.

Switch grinned and leaned out through the hole he'd made over the lava flow towards Cheetor's cage. With two more swings of his arm he cut out another section of bars. Together, the two climbed outside and clambered to the top of their cages. The cages swayed back and forth through the air under their weight.

"Now what?" Cheetor called to him once they were both on top and crouched down to minimize the cages' sway.

Switch gazed out across the river of lava surrounding them. At least fifteen feet separated them from the nearest solid ground in any which direction. Without a hover platform they were stranded. There was no way he or Cheetor could jump such a distance. Switch growled with frustration before his gaze happened to light on the length of chain attaching both their cages to the ceiling of the room ten feet above. A maintenance hatch to what Switchblade assumed was the Darksyde's ventilation system stood directly between the two chain supports.

_Score_, he grinned.

Switch caught Cheetor's eye and motioned with his optics up towards the vent. Cheetor followed his gaze up the length of his own cage's chain. He looked back at Switch and shrugged. _What other choice do we have?_ he seemed to say.

"Up we go then," Switch said.

Using the links as a makeshift ladder the two scaled the metal chain. Switchblade knocked open the ventilation hatch with a sharp kick of his foot. The vent cover tumbled through the air to the lava flow. It hit the surface with a hollow slap before slowly sinking into the fiery soup and out of existence. Keeping a tight hold on the chain in case he slipped, Switch hoisted himself up through vent and into the narrow air duct beyond.

"Aw geez it's hot in here," Switch groaned as he wriggled deeper into the narrow passage. It was so tight he could barely move both his arms at once. The top of his feathered crest was flattened against the top of the air duct, forcing him to keep his face low to the bottom of the vent. He couldn't even push himself onto his knees the space was so narrow. The only way he could move was by slowly inching along with one foot pushing and one elbow pulling him forward. It was so dark he couldn't see anything except a dim square of light several dozen feet ahead marking another vent hatch.

Behind him he heard Cheetor awkwardly clamber inside the air duct behind him.

"Primus I hope we don't get stuck in here," Cheetor murmured. His voice sounded strangely muffled in the suffocating tunnel of darkness.

"Me too," Switch agreed.

The effort of squeezing through the air duct took too much concentration and energy to consider wasting either on meaningless talk. Nor could they risk being overheard by any Predacons. Moving as fast as they could, it still took almost half a megacycle for Switchblade to reach the next closest vent. By the time he was finally able to peer through the grating into the new room he was covered with grime and condensation. His internal cooling system were working hard to compensate for the stifling heat and his strenuous efforts. He wondered briefly if it would have been so hot in the air duct if they could have escaped from a room that _wasn't_ over an active lava flow.

"What do you see?" Cheetor whispered behind him. He sounded just as tired and overheated as Switch felt. Being shot by a dose of Quickstrike's cyber-venom certainly hadn't helped either of their staminas.

Switchblade pressed his face flat to the narrow grating. "It looks like a lab. Probably Tarantulas's. I see tons of lab equipment and a computer station. We must have crossed over into the main part of the ship."

"See anyone?"

"No." He wouldn't have risked talking if he thought the Predacon's scientist or anyone else was there. Balling his hand into a fist, Switch smashed it down against the vent cover. It dropped away from him to the ground ten feet below with a metallic clatter. "Let's get out of here. I feel like I'm about to suffocate in here."

"Robots can't suffocate. We don't technically need to breathe," Cheetor pointed out.

Switchblade rolled his optics. "You know what I mean." Holding the edge of the vent, Switch squeezed through the narrow square into open air. He twisted head over heels, released his hold on the air duct and landed on the ground in a graceful crouch. "Oh thank Primus," he groaned with relief as he stood, stretching backwards until his spinal column gave a sharp pop. "Remind me to never go sneaking around through air ducts again. It's not as easy as they make it look in movies."

Cheetor dropped down beside him. "Agreed." He began to turn towards the door. "Come on. Let's get out of here before anyone finds out we've flown the coop."

"No, wait." Switchblade hurried towards the giant computer terminal on the other side of the room. "If Tarantulas's computer is hooked to the ship's mainframe we might be able to pull up a schematic of the Darksyde and find the closest exit out of here. I might also be able to hack into the Predacon's security systems and disable their outer defenses so we can make a break for it without anyone being the wiser."

"You can do that?"

Switchblade gave Cheetor a flat look. "My dad's an expert hacker. You think he didn't teach me something over the solar cycles?"

Switchblade turned his attention to the Predacon scientist's computer. His fingers began to fly over the keys and through the widows filled with Cybertronian script. It was relatively easy for him to break through the system's initial firewalls (Pass word protection? Ha. Child's play.) and access the Darksyde's main hard drive. There he found schematics, blueprints and access codes to almost the entire ship. He tried to memorize as much as he could as he paged through the screens. He would have loved to copy all of this information to a flash drive to take back to the Axalon, but there wasn't enough time for it. He and Cheetor needed to get out of there before anyone found out they'd escaped. He didn't want to have to go back through the volcanic hills with fliers or anyone else coming after them in hot pursuit. _Especially_ not Protoform X.

"Wow. You're good," Cheetor said as Switch accessed the ship's security systems next.

Switchblade smiled. "I try my best."

Within a few minutes he managed to write a new line of code into the Darksyde's security operations systems that made the security cameras replay the last five minutes of video feed in an endless loop. Switch wondered how long it would be before anyone figured out what he'd done and find his trojan code. He also put the ship's automated security grid on a twenty minute standby - giving him and Cheetor just enough time to get out and away from the ship's perimeter guns.

"Come on," Switch said, closing down the bank of windows he'd been using. "There's a service hatch just down the hall that'll let us out on the ship's starboard side. As long as we don't run into any random patrols we should be able to make for the hills without any trouble."

"Sounds good to me," Cheetor nodded.

Switchblade was just about to turn away from the terminal and head for the door when he happened to see a small window running in the bottom right corner of the screen he hadn't noticed before now. He paused and clicked the window open to see what it was. It wasn't a program he'd brought up to hack Tarantulas's computer. The mad scientist must have left it running before leaving the lab. Switch quickly scanned the lines of codes and figures that filled the screen. It appeared to be data from a deep space satellite. Switch couldn't make sense of half of the data, but he knew enough to realize whatever satellite, probe or whatever the Predacons were monitoring had picked up on a strong alien signal somewhere in the same quadrant of space as them. It was an energy signature the likes of which Switch had never seen before. He had fulfilled his Deep Space Research requirement at the Academy with a semester of Quantum Sub-Space Energy, but couldn't remember having encountered anything like this before.

"Switch!" Cheetor hissed from the doorway of the lab. "Come on! We don't have time for this. We need to get out of here!"

Switchblade shook himself back to the present. "Yeah. Coming." He gave the list of data one last scan before reluctantly minimizing the window, shutting down the computer terminal and hurrying after Cheetor.

Later - after he and Cheetor had safely crossed back over into Maximal land - Switchblade still couldn't shake the feeling that whatever he'd seen on Tarantulas's computer would somehow become very important in the near future. And not just for him. But for everyone else in the Beast Wars as well.

To Be Continued

Any thoughts on Switch's first encounter with Megatron and the rest of the Predacons? And what can this strange energy signal be? Thanks for reading!

Signing out  
-LAXgirl


	5. Comings and Goings

**Chapter Five: Comings and Goings**

"You did _WHAT_?"

Switchblade winced at Dinobot's thunderous roar. The warrioress stared at him and Cheetor as if unable to decide whether to be more stunned or angry at them. A number of the other Maximals gathered there seemed to share Dinobot's sentiments. The bridge had become the center of activity since Switch and Cheetor left the Axalon earlier that morning. Dinobot, Airazor, Rhinox, Optimus, Rattrap, his younger self and - wonders upon wonders given the mech's reclusive nature - Depthcharge himself had been on the bridge when he and Cheetor had gotten back. On the way back to base Switchblade had toyed around with the idea of swearing Cheetor to secrecy about being captured and held on the Darksyde, but ultimately discarded the idea. News of their misadventure would eventually get out one way or another. Best to just come clean about it now and head off the worse of the yelling as soon as possible.

"You tried sneaking into Predacon territory and were captured by the enemy?" Dinobot snarled. "What were you thinking!" Her optics flashed at Switchblade dangerously.

"I know, I know, it was stupid, but Cheetor and I got out of there as fast as we could. The Predacons honestly have the worse brig I've ever seen. All things considered, it was ridiculously easy to get out of."

Dinobot took a step closer to him, her body language radiating anger. "You shouldn't have been there at all to be able to make such an assessment on their security."

"You know, you're right," Switch hastily agreed. His optics darted towards his father who sat in a monitor chair immediately to his left with his sparkling self propped in his lap. Switchblade casually swooped down and snatched himself up into his arms, cradling his younger self between his arms face out towards Dinobot like a shield. The sparkling chortled happily, swinging his legs in the air. "But I had to find out where Protoform X actually was. Before now I wasn't even sure if X was actually on the Darksyde. I just got a little carried away making sure."

Switch noticed the confused glance Rattrap made between himself and his suddenly empty lap and hastily explained. "I know mom would never hurt me as a sparkling, but right now I wouldn't put much money on her not coming after me as an adult." He unconsciously clutched the tiny sparkling a little closer to his chest. His younger self gave a series of chirps, oblivious to the tension around him.

Dinobot glared, her teeth bared in a snarl, but she broke off her advance.

"You saw X?" Depthcharge interrupted the mother-son stand off.

Switchblade rearranged the sparkling into a more comfortable position in his arms and turned to address his companion from the future. His mood became deadly serious. "Yes. And a lot closer than was comfortable given the circumstances. He was there with Megatron and the other Predacons."

"Then we should go after him," Depthcharge growled. "Now that you know how to get in and out of the ship there's nothing stopping us from going in and permanently terminating him. We've sat around doing nothing long enough."

"You can't just storm the Darksyde, Depthcharge," Optimus interjected. "As soon as Megatron discovers Switch and Cheetor escaped, he's going to put the Predacons on full alert. You're never going to get near the Darksyde as easily as they did again."

"You stay out of this, Primal," Depthcharge snarled.

Switchblade shook his helm. "Megatron's going to completely overhaul the ship's outer defenses to find out how we got past the perimeter guns. He'll patch the holes as soon as he finds the blind spots. Plus, there might be a slight hitch in killing X now…" The happy burbles his sparkling self was making in his arms sharply contrasted with the ominous mood now permeating the bridge. "X's spark is no longer in his own body. Megatron must have somehow removed it in order to control him. Mom's clone has it."

Depthcharge's optics narrowed in thought. "We might actually be able to use that to our advantage. If we can get a hold of X's spark without having to actually face X, it will make our mission easier."

Switch stared at the ex-security officer as if he thought he'd gone insane. "Um, didn't you just hear what I said? _Talon's_ got X's spark. Going up against her to get to X is not an improvement."

"Yeah," Cheetor chimed in. "She keeps his spark right on her in a subspace compartment."

Rattrap snorted. "Da odds definitely aren't in yer favor now."

"How can a femme possibly pose more of a threat than Protoform X?" Depthcharge demanded, his expression confused.

Several glances were shared between the Maximal crew.

Dinobot growled under her breath. Her entire superstructure bristled with insult. "She is the deadliest fighter on the Predacon crew, and is completely devoted to Megatron's cause. Do not underestimate her for a nano-click just because she is a femme. She will eviscerate you as soon as you take your optics off her."

"Listen to Dinobot," Optimus counseled. "Talon is not someone to take lightly. If you want to get Rampage's spark from her, you're probably going to need at least several other bots helping you."

Depthcharge remained impressed. "I don't need any help. Especially not against a femme."

Dinobot visibly bristled with outrage but was held back by Optimus's hand on her shoulder plate. Rhinox also edged closer to the warrioress in case he needed to jump in between her and the ex-security officer.

Switchblade shot Depthcharge a dark look. "It's your funeral then.

"Jagoff,(**1**)" he quietly added under his breath. He'd never particularly liked Depthcharge - mostly because of his arrogance and narrow mindedness - but hearing him indirectly insult his mother dropped Depthcharge even lower on Switch's personal list of favorite people.

Depthcharge gave Switchblade a flat scowl. "If you don't feel up to doing what we came here to do, then fine. I'll finish X myself. I knew the moment they assigned you to come with me that you'd never be able to do what you needed to when the time finally came. And I was right. You're just like every other bot that's refused to deal with X head on. And look what's happened because of it! Countless colonies, space outposts and cities leveled to dust and everyone in them killed because you were too soft to take action against a sparkless killer."

"Don't you dare question my ability to kill X," Switchblade snapped. His younger self became quiet in his arms at the sound of their raised voices. He chirped uncertainly and huddled against Switch's chest. "I want X dead as much as you do. But we can't just go after him without a plan."

"And what _is_ our plan exactly? So far we've done nothing except sit here on the Axalon and reminisce!" Depthcharge glared at Switchblade through slit-thin optics. "You refuse to take any kind of offensive action. If I didn't know better I'd almost say you were afraid to go after X."

"Because I know running after X with our blasters half cocked is just going to get us killed!" Switch spat. "I saw X close up today! I stared him straight in the optics! And guess what, Depthcharge - I am afraid of him! Any sane bot would! We both know what he'd do to us if he ever got his claws on us. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on the mission. I'm not going back to Cybertron until I see that slobbering psychopath dead! But we're not going to get the chance to finish X unless we figure out some kind of strategy. I'm not going to make anymore mistakes like I did today. No more solo missions. No more unnecessary risks. Killing X is going to take both of us working together as a team with an actual plan. That's the only way we're ever going to get past the rest of Megatron's crew and get X's spark away from Talon. And right now out best plan is to stay here on the Axalon with the rest of the crew. They have resources we can use that we won't have running around in the wilderness by ourselves."

Depthcharge spat, his entire body radiating disgust. "If you want to stay here where it's safe and warm like a little sparkling, then fine. By all means do so. But I'm going after X. I never intended to work with you as a team anyway. I work better alone. The only reason I agreed to have you come along was because it was the only way General Skyraze would let me leave."

"You're going to get yourself killed!" Switch snarled. "You're not even thinking about this."

"I've done enough thinking." Turning his back on Switch, the ex-security officer stormed to the nearest lift. He punched the button. The doors slid open with a hiss. He stepped inside and swung back around to spear Switch with a poisonous glare. "It's time to take action. X has too many innocent lives to answer for for me to just sit around and wait anymore. He's going down, once and for all."

"Depthcharge, stop and just think about this for a minute!" Optimus cried.

"You're making a mistake!" Switch yelled.

If Depthcharge heard them, he gave no indication. He punched his fist against the lift's controls. The doors slid close around him and the lift sunk out of view.

Switchblade stared through the glass doors as the lift rattled back up into the ship several moments later, empty. His optics narrowed, his dentals grinding together against the storm of emotions roiling inside him.

Dinobot wordlessly stepped up to him and took the sparkling from him. His arms now free, Switchblade angrily ran a hand through his feathered crest. Without realizing it, he began to pace back and forth along his side of the bridge. Total silence reigned. Everyone else watched him as if unsure what to say or do in the wake of what they'd just seen.

"Switch-" Optimus carefully broke the silence.

"That crazy slagger," Switch snarled through his teeth. "He's going to get himself killed and ruin the entire mission."

"Depthcharge always has been what I'd charitably call a volatile bot," Optimus calmly agreed. "I can't say I'm surprised by him leaving like this. In fact, I'm surprised he didn't do so sooner."

Switchblade forced himself to stop pacing and ran a hand through his crest one more time. He heaved a tired sigh. "I guess I'm not either. It's just… he's so dead set on hunting down X as fast as possible he's not even thinking about the consequences. He was right about a couple of things, though. We haven't done anything since arriving here. We need to go more on the offensive instead of just waiting around here for X to come to us. I need to so something - especially now that Megatron knows I'm here." Switchblade took a deep intake and looked towards the lift Depthcharge had just disappeared through. "I should probably go with him..."

A murmur of alarm went through the bridge. A flurry of protests immediately assaulted him.

"Switch, you can't," Airazor frantically shook her helm.

"If you go with him, he's just going to get both of you killed," Cheetor argued.

"I agree," Optimus said. "This is not the time to be making such rash decisions when emotions are running high. Leaving the Axalon to hunt down Rampage in the wilderness is not the way to complete your mission."

"I will not allow you to leave," Dinobot snarled. She clutched the sparkling propped on her hip joint a little closer.

"I'm with yer mom on dis," Rattrap seconded, his expression etched with mild panic. "It's suicide."

Switchblade's fingers restlessly carded through the plume of feathers on his helm without any conscious thought. How had things gotten to this? He should have never gone near the Darksyde. But even then what Depthcharge had said was right: they couldn't sit around and wait anymore. The survival of everyone he knew and cared about in the future depended on him disposing of Protoform X in this time.

"I'm sorry," he helplessly shook his helm. "But I can't stay here anymore. Megatron knows who I am and knows I'm staying with yinz. After our first meeting I know he's going to be gunning for me the next time there's a battle. Assuming he doesn't come after me first, that is. I'm putting everyone in danger by staying here."

"Switch, Megatron uses any excuse he can to attack us already," Optimus said. "You leaving isn't going to change anything. Depthcharge isn't thinking clearly right now. Until he cools off and has some time to think things through, he's a danger to himself and everyone else around him - you included. I don't want to see him recklessly lead you two into disaster." Optimus stepped closer, forcing Switch to look up and meet his gaze. "If you two go off on your own and are killed, who will be around to make sure Rampage is successfully terminated? Depthcharge has already explained how badly we failed in that department once."

Switchblade froze. Optimus was right. If he and Depthcharge were killed who would carry on the mission? Optimus, his parents and the crew were busy enough fighting Megatron. They didn't have the manpower to focus their attention exclusively on destroying Protoform X. Although he trusted that they understood the importance of making sure X was deactivated by the end of the war this time around, he didn't want to leave anything to chance if he could help it. Would the High Council send back more soldiers if he and Depthcharge were unsuccessful? Would they even know? There had been speculation before he and Depthcharge left if anything they did in the past would actually effect the future time continuum that'd already happened. There were too many variables to say for sure.

Seeing Switch's growing indecision, Rhinox decided to speak up. "If you stay here, you could still keep in touch with Depthcharge through comm-links and hunt Rampage on two fronts - you here on the Axalon and Depthcharge in the field. You'd double your odds of eventually cornering him."

"Switchblade, think about this logically," Dinobot said. She leveled a hard look on him, as though willing him to obey her. "I know I would have taught you basic military strategy. What tactical advantage will you have against your enemy by concentrating all of your offensive force in one place?"

Switch sighed, browbeaten into defeat. "None," he reluctantly mumbled. "Fine. I'll stay here. But the first sign I get of X or Depthcharge on the scanners, I'm going to help."

Optimus smiled, his body sagging with relief. "That's all we can ask. You might be here on orders of the High Council, but I still consider you part of my crew. I'd hate to see you get hurt while here."

Switch forced himself to give Optimus a tight smile of appreciation but the gesture didn't quite reach his optics. No matter what the tactical advantages of him staying on the Axalon were, Depthcharge's accusations continued to loop like a broken feedback in the back of his processor.

* * *

Talon's footsteps echoed down the length of the Darksyde's corridors, booming like mortar fire. It was late. The rest of the crew had long since finished their duties and scattered to their quarters, or wherever they went when not on duty. She encountered no one else in the hallways on the way to her own quarters. Usually, she would spend the night with Megatron in his rooms, as was expected of her as his consort. But she doubted her presence was desired that evening. After discovering their Maximal captives had escaped, Megatron had flown into an apocalyptic rage. Talon had never seen her lover so angry - not even after Dinobot had thwarted their plans to kill the proto-humans in the valley. Several of the crew had almost lost limbs in the wake of Megatron's rage. When Megatron had finally burned off most of his anger, he'd stormed off the bridge to his personal quarters. Until he comm-ed her to order her presence, Talon was not about to disturb him. If there was one thing she'd learned over the last stellar cycle since her creation it was the art of judging Megatron's moods. And right now was not a time to test the warlord's patience or his desire for company.

Talon was not pleased by the loss of their captives either. But for reasons not quite the same as her lover. Although smart-mouthed, insolent and without any sense of propriety, she had been intrigued by this older incarnation of Dinobot's son. He looked so much like her sister it was unnerving. If she had progeny would they look like Switchblade? Would they take after her as much as Switchblade had Dinobot? Or would they take after Megatron more?

The thought made an involuntary thrill go down the length of Talon's spinal strut. Although she did not consider herself the type of femme naturally suited to sparkbearing, the sudden appearance of her sister's progeny had forced her to consider the possibility. She doubted Megatron would ever sparkbond with her and make her his official mate, but someday after the Predacons won the Beast Wars and returned to Cybertron - she refused to consider any other possibility - it was possible he might want an heir. As the warlord's consort, the task would inevitably fall to her.

A surge of anticipation coursed through her artificial spark at the thought. Surely she had proven her loyalty and skills to Megatron by now to be rewarded with the honor of carrying his heir. She couldn't think of any other femme worthy enough to even be considered. Megatron had specially created her, taken her as his consort and made her his second in command. Surely that had to be a sign of her worth to him. Dinobot had also bore a healthy male for her first sparkling. As her clone, that could only be a sign of Talon's own ability to bear male offspring. If the warlord wished it, she would bear him as many sparklings as he wanted. Anything he wished of her she would gladly give.

Talon's wistful musing was cut short, however, by a dark figure suddenly darting out at her from a shadowy niche of the corridor.

The figure gave a garbled battle cry, giving Talon just enough warning to brace herself before she was brutally rammed sideways by the second body. She somehow managed not to lose her footing and be driven to the floor. Hands clawed at her, groping at the edges of her hip's sub-space compartment.

"Give me my spark back!"

Talon snarled and lashed her finger blades at her attacker's face. She felt their sharpened edges connect with protomatter. There was a monstrous howl of pain as her attacker stumbled backwards from her several feet. Talon whirled around towards Rampage and sunk into a battle stance, her finger blades threateningly flexed at her sides. Four slash mark ran across Rampage's face. Before mech-fluid could even begin to seep from his butchered facial plates, however, a shimmery blue light appeared and began to magically fuse the torn edges of protomatter back together. When the light finally faded several nano-klicks later, Rampage's face was once again whole as if Talon's blades had never even connected with him. She'd almost forgotten about his regenerative powers.

"How dare you attack me," she snarled. "You will pay dearly for this."

Rampage growled deep in the back of his intake line. "I want my spark back. I will not be your or Megatron's slave anymore."

"Unfortunately, you do not have any say in the matter. Lord Megatron entrusted your spark to me, and that is where it shall remain."

Rampage snarled, his optics flashing in the darkness of the corridor. "I _will_ have my spark back. And after I retake it I have every intention of peeling your sparkchamber open and feasting on your spark while you're still alive as payment for the indignity you've put me through. You might have enjoyed your time as my jailer, but the megalomaniac and that annoying ant aren't here to protect you now. Amongst all of Megatron's mistakes, his biggest has to have been giving my spark to a femme to guard. With no one else here to back you up you will easily fall."

Talon spat in rage, her fluid lines pounding in her audios. "Fool. I do not need anyone to protect me. I can defend myself perfectly well." She flexed her finger blades. Their sharpened edges reflected the dim light of the corridor. "You might be immortal, but I can still find ways to make you hurt." With one hand she reached down to her hip and withdrew Rampage's caged spark from her sub-space compartment. She held if up to him tauntingly. Its shimmering blue light danced across the corridor walls.

Rampage's rage became palpable at the sight of his disembodied spark. "Give that back!" he howled and recklessly threw himself at the transmetal femme and his prize.

Talon's fingers squeezed around the sides of the makeshift sparkchamber, driving its lining of raw energon crystals into the core of Rampage's spark. Rampage's shriek of pain was immediate and frightening. Waves of sparkling blue light coiled up and down the length of his entire body. Rampage crumbled to the floor, thrashing wildly. Talon didn't know how long she kept the sides of his artificial sparkchamber clamped down. All she knew was that Rampage's vocal processor was beginning to short by the time she finally relaxed her grip on his disembodied spark.

"You treacherous femme," Rampage spat. His voice was laced with an undercurrent of static. His entire body shook in the aftermath of Talon's assault. Shakily pulling his limbs underneath him, he forced himself back up onto his pedes. "If you didn't hold my spark in your hands, I could eviscerate you with nothing more than the flick of my wrist."

Talon sneered. "If that is what you wish to believe, than so be it. But as it stands right now I hold the power. No one else. If I wished, I could squeeze your spark between my fingers until it permanently flickered offline. You might fight under the Predacon banner and fulfill all of Lord Megatron's demands, but it is only because I hold complete control over your miserable existence."

Rampage snarled, his entire body shaking with rage. "I swear to you I will kill you before the end of this war. I will tear your spark out from your body and hold it up for you to see before I devour it in one bite."

Talon said nothing in response except to hold up his spark up and, ever so slightly, squeeze the sides of its container down on it. Rampage hissed and spat with important rage. His hand unconsciously clutched at the front of his chest where his spark should have been. For a moment Talon thought he would attempt a second wild assault on her. Instead, Rampage gave one last growl and darted away into the murky darkness of the corridor. Talon listened as the pounding echo of his footsteps slowly faded away into the distance.

Talon let her hand that held Rampage's disembodied spark fall to her side and took a steadying intake of air. Her entire body trembled in the wake of her encounter with Rampage. Just like her predecessor, Dinobot, she had never been scared of confrontations or cowed by threats, but Rampage's words had struck an undeniable cord of fear inside her. For reasons she couldn't fully explain, Rampage's promise of revenge unnerved her. Her hand shook ever so slightly as she returned Rampage's spark to her sub-space compartment. She felt as if a pall of foreboding - like a curse - now hung over her despite her best attempts to shake the feeling.

The chirp of her private comm-link startled her out of her thoughts.

"_Talon,_" Megatron's voice filled her audios. "_I desire your presence in my personal quarters. Now."_

"Yes, my Lord," she replied. She tapped her comm-link off. She tried to force herself to forget Rampage's threat. Yet try as she might - even as she lay in the darkness of Megatron's personal quarters later that night with the warlord recharging beside her on the berth - she still couldn't escape the eerie feeling of foreboding that now hung over her.

* * *

Somewhere deep in space, several thousand parsecs from primitive Earth, the alien energy signal Tarantulas's space probe had detected several days ago suddenly spiked. Like the heart of a miniature supernova, light, heat and the rawest form of physical energy expanded, warped and contracted to tear a hole in the very fabric of space. The tear folded in on itself to create a small wormhole. From out of this tunnel of darkness a ball of concentrated light exploded into existence from some unknown corner of the universe. It streaked across the star-studded void of space directly towards the tiny blue planet revolving around a small yellow sun on the western edge of an unimpressive spiral galaxy. Hundreds of light years were covered in the blink of an eye.

The speeding energy ball sliced through the upper atmosphere of the planet, dragging a tail of ice crystals and dirt behind it like a shooting star. A sonic boom cracked the air as it hurtled to the ground. It slammed into the earth going several hundred feet per second in the empty reaches of the planet's northern tundra. Several hundred tons of snow, dirt and rock were sent flying into the air by the impact. The force shook the ground like an earthquake. On a nearby mountain an avalanche was triggered, sending a wall of snow thundering down its side.

In the center of the steaming crater that now scarred the once perfect white snowscape, stood a figure. The figure was male, his stature tall and his body thickly armored with plates of gleaming white metal. A pair of plated blue wings framed either side of him.

The newcomer's yellow optics slowly scanned the surrounding area. "Earth…" he rumbled. Somewhere in the faded depths of his memory he remembered he'd been here before and knew this place. Once, what felt like a lifetime ago, he'd called this frozen land his home. His favorite place of solitude. But now it was nothing but an empty wasteland of snow to him, devoid of any sentimental value.

He glanced towards the south. Somewhere in that direction resided his target - the reason for his return to this primitive planet.

"And so the hunt begins," Tigerhawk growled. Spreading his wings, he rocketed into the air in the direction of the two warring alien factions who'd destroyed his masters' experiment. His mission: to mete out retribution for the intruders' disastrous meddling.

_To Be Continued…_

(**1**) Jagoff - a jerk.

Tigatron's back and Depthcharge is gone. How will all this effect everything else that's happening?

PLEASE REVIEW! Any questions or concerns you have I'll answer in a reply. Just be sure to leave me an email or be properly logged in.


	6. Remember Me

**Chapter Six: Remember Me**

Airazor and Dinobot moved quickly across the frozen wasteland of snow. A slate-grey ceiling of dark clouds hung low overhead. The two traveled in beast-mode. Their dark brown animal bodies stood out sharply against the white and gray landscape. The flier flew only several feet above Dinobot. The frigid northern winds pushing at Airazor's back made it easy to keep pace with the she-raptor's swift-footed gait.

"Curse this infernal Primus-forsaken land!" Dinobot snarled over the cold whistle of wind. Powder-fine snow - kicked up and carried by the polar breeze - had begun to clump in miniature snowballs in the corners of her eyes and around her nostrils. Dinobot snorted and tucked her head down closer to her shoulders against the wind in a vain attempt to conserve core body heat. Airazor felt for the warrioress. It was well known that the former Predacon had no love for cold weather.

Airazor, however, found the chill invigorating. She stretched her neck out into the headwind and relished the chilly sting of ice crystals against her face. It had been some time since she'd been out like this. The last time she'd been on a long-range mission was almost six months ago with Tigatron when-

A startlingly intense surge of pain blossomed through Airazor's spark, forcing her to immediately cut that line of thought off. Even after all this time the mere thought of Tigatron was enough to make her internals clench and her spark sink with helpless longing. Six months ago she would have gone on this mission with Tigatron as her partner. But ever since the scout disappeared in a beam of alien light Airazor couldn't bring herself to go any further than the edge of Maximal territory. The open wilds of primitive Earth brought back too many painful memories of her missing lover. The only thing that had convinced Airazor to travel to the planet's northern tundra was the odd energy signal Rhinox had detected the night before on the Axalon's long-range scanners. From what they could tell it had been a decent-sized impact - like that of a small meteoroid. But the flash of deep-space energy that had accompanied the impact reading was too strange - and similar to the energy signature of the alien weapon that had almost destroyed Earth a year before - to simply dismiss the anomaly without further investigation.

Being the only trained long-range scout left on the Maximal crew, Optimus had asked Airazor to go investigate. He'd also ordered Dinobot to go along with her as backup. If it had been anyone else Optimus had partnered her with Airazor probably would have refused the mission. But Dinobot was different. Airazor liked being with the warrioress. Whether it was because of the raptor's brusque, non-sentimental attitude and military bearing, or her unwavering focus on any mission she was given, being with Dinobot made Airazor less likely to dwell on Tigatron's absence and - at least momentarily - forget her loneliness.

Below her, Dinobot shuffled to a stop and looked up at her. "What are our current coordinates?"

Airazor flapped hard against the frigid wind and dropped to the ground beside the warrioress. Her talons made a harsh scrapping sound against the ice-encrusted ground. She quickly checked her internal geo-positional readings. "We're getting close to the place Rhinox detected the impact. It's hard to get an exact reading, but the impact site should only be several hundred yards ahead of us."

Dinobot transformed to her root-form with a quick command. She immediately unsheathed her sword. "We should proceed with caution. The energy signature we detected could very well be some kind of alien weapon sent to attack us by the ones that created this planet."

"You don't have to try and convince me," Airazor said. She transformed to her bi-pedal form, laser gun already in hand. "I've learned the hard way that nothing good ever comes from alien-made things."

Their weapons drawn and ready, the two femmes cautiously continued their approach. A small ridge of overturned dirt appeared in the near-distance. Against the snow-covered land, the disturbed rocks and soil looked like a ghastly black wound in the earth. Airazor and Dinobot crept closer until they came to the edge of the chest-high ridge and looked down over it. Airazor sucked in a startled intake of air. What had at first only looked like a ridge of overturned dirt and rocks from a distance Airazor now realized the was actually the lip of a gigantic crater. The crater was at least twenty feet deep and three times as many feet across. The center of the impact area was charred black as if it had been razed by some intense fire.

"Primus…" Airazor murmured under her breath.

Dinobot scanned the area with laser-sharp optics. "I detect no signs of a meteoroid or any other kind of space debris."

"Whatever caused this might have incinerated on impact," Airazor suggested.

Dinobot's facial plates tightened into a deep frown. "We should investigate this closer before we start making any kind of assumptions about what happened here."

Airazor nodded and awkwardly clambered over the raised lip of the crater. Dinobot followed her over the ridge with nothing more than a powerful leap up over the ridge. Airazor fought down a surge of envy for the warrioress and her long legs. The slope on the other side of the ridge was steep but peppered with ledges and large rocks that made the decent easier than if it had been smooth. Airazor once almost slipped on the shifting rocks and frozen chunks of earth, but Dinobot caught her roughly by the elbow and steadied her before she could fall onto her aft. Finally, they reached the bottom of the crater. The wind seemed to howl louder at the bottom of the crater than at the top as the frigid northern air whistled across the yawning chasm. Airazor involuntarily shuddered. The sound reminded her of tortured souls screaming in the depths of the Pit.

Dinobot knelt in the heat-pitted center of the crater and ran her claws through the blackened soil. Several larger rocks were encased in shells of heat-blasted glass. Airazor tried to imagine what kind of explosion had happened to have created so much heat to have created glass, but it was difficult to when snow had already begun to drift down into the crater and blanket the area in a fine coat of white powder. The frozen tundra had already begun to reclaim the scarred tract of land.

"I still see nothing to give any clues as to what created this crater," Dinobot said. "If this really was nothing more than a meteoroid hit, then there should be at least some kind of debris inside the impact zone."

Airazor looked around the crater. An unexplainable heavy feeling pulled at the bottom of her fuel tank. "I agree. Even when meteoroids mostly burn up or break upon impact, there's usually _some_ kind of trace left behind."

Dinobot ran her hand against the ground again, thoughtfully. "Sometimes meteoroids hit the ground so hard that they actually drill down into the soil - sometimes several hundred feet. But the size of this crater suggests that whatever hit here wasn't big enough to have had that much velocity to tunnel down, nor do I see any traces of an impact hole. Whatever hit did not go any deeper into the earth than where you and I now stand." The warrioress stood straight and gave a soft growl. "I do not like this…"

Airazor withdrew a small scanning device from her hip compartment and flicked it on. It immediately began to beep and chirp as she swung it around the crater in a slow circle. "I'm detecting notably high readings of deep-space radiation. Whatever hit here was definitely extra-terrestrial."

Dinobot's frown deepened. "I will call base to find out what Optimus wants us to do now." She tapped the side of her helm's communication's array. "Dinobot to Axalon. Come in. Over." A storm of static answered her over the link. "Dinobot to base. Come in. Over," she snarled a little louder. Still nothing but static.

"That happens a lot out here," Airazor calmly explained. "Tigatron and I always used to have trouble getting a good signal this far north. We're too far out of range of our signal towers."

The warrioress gave an annoyed snarl and angrily snapped her comm-link off. "Then we should head back to base. Optimus must be told of what we found here."

Airazor nodded. "Agreed. But let me take a quick soil sample for Rhinox. He might be able to tell us a little bit more about what hit here." She withdrew a small metal tube from her other hip sub-space and stooped down to the ground. She dragged its open end against the ground until it was half full of charred earth, then re-capped and sub-spaced it. "Let's go," she said. She smoothly hopped into the air and transformed into beast-mode. With a strong flap of her wings she shot upwards into the air and out of the crater into the open arctic wind. Airazor was not so un-spiteful not to note how much more effort it took the warrioress to escape the crater than it had her. Dinobot's long legs were not so much an asset to her now compared to a pair of wings. The raptor was cursing darkly under her breath by the time she finally reached the lip of the ridge and pulled herself up over it onto even ground. Airazor lazily hovered above Dinobot as her companion transformed into her reptilian form.

Without a word, the two angled themselves due south and began the long trek back. After several miles, Airazor swooped down lower so that she flew level to Dinobot's head. "Any more ideas about what might have caused that crater?"

Dinobot growled softly under her breath. "No. But the more I ponder it, the more I am forced to consider that whatever it was wasn't natural. Nothing we saw at the impact site leads me to believe that this was a normal meteoroid strike."

Airazor hesitated before putting to voice to the suspicion that had begun to gnaw at the edge of her thoughts since leaving the crater. "Do you think whatever that was has something to do with the aliens that created this planet?"

Dinobot did not immediately answer. She stared ahead into the distance, her reptilian green eyes narrowed in troubled thought. "I do not know," she finally murmured. "But the same thought has crossed my mind as well. I have nothing to prove my suspicions, but my instincts tell me that whatever impacted there can spell only trouble for us."

The niggling feeling of unease that had been bothering Airazor since finding the crater flared into open worry. It was not reassuring to know that Dinobot was as troubled by their findings as herself. She had come to trust Dinobot's instincts, and if the warrioress was worried about the mysterious impact than Airazor felt she was entitled to be equally as worried.

For several leagues the two traveled in tense silence, their conversation still weighing heavily on both their processors. Every so often Dinobot would try to radio base again, but each time was answered by nothing more than static. It was sometime after the fifth time Dinobot tried to contact the ship that Airazor noticed a sudden nervousness in the warrioress's demeanor. Dinobot walked stiffly, her eyes constantly scanning the surrounding landscape as if searching for hidden enemies.

The flier dipped closer to her companion's side. "What is it?" she asked over the whistle of wind. "What's wrong?"

Dinobot's eyes darted back and forth around the rocky wasteland of snow and ice. Her body language was openly tense. "We're being followed," she growled out the corner of her mouth. "I don't know by who, but I sensed another presence near us about a quarter of a mile back. I picked up the presence the last time I tried radioing to base. Here, listen closely." She keyed her internal communications array on. "Dinobot to Axalon. Come in. Over."

As expected, a howl of static burst over the raptor's comm-link line.

At first Airazor didn't know what Dinobot wanted her to hear. All she heard was static. But the longer the warrioress kept the comm-link channel open Airazor detected an extra barely noticeable squeal of backfeed coming in over the line behind the roar of static. It had a metallic tone to it, like a low frequency whine.

At Airazor's startled look Dinobot closed the link. The whistle of the wind seemed muffled now to Airazor's audios in the deafening silence that followed in the wake of the static.

"A scrambler?" Airazor whispered. "But that would mean-"

"Our comm-links are not being disabled solely by a lack of radio signal," Dinobot said. "Someone is blocking our radio transmissions." Her eyes darted from side to side, searching for the unseen culprit.

"Do you think it's Predacons?" Airazor asked.

Dinobot shook her head. "Doubtful. If we were being followed by Predacons they would have shown themselves by now. Megatron's men are not skilled enough to have escaped my detection this long. Whoever is following us is someone else." Growling under her breath, Dinobot abruptly stopped and transformed to her root form, her sword already in hand.

Airazor wordlessly followed suit and transformed on the ground beside the larger femme, blaster drawn. The two instinctively angled themselves back to back so that neither of their blind sides were exposed.

"We know we are being followed!" Dinobot yelled into the empty whiteness. Snow swirled around them in the frigid wind. "Show yourself and face us!"

Airazor scanned the surrounding tundra, searching for any sign of movement. The wind was beginning to pick up, blowing thick curtains of snow and powdered ice and making it difficult to see. For several minutes the two femmes remained in defensive stances. But no enemy appeared to confront them.

"Dinobot, are you sure someone is following us?" Airazor whispered over her shoulder after several more moments. "Megatron might just have a jamming tower out here and that's what's blocking our comm-link signal."

"No," the warrioress snapped. "To block our signal like that one must use a scrambler, and to use a scrambler one must be within several hundred feet of the targeted signal. I tell you there is someone tracking our movements and is somewhere nearby."

Airazor was just about to say something in response when Dinobot's suspected stalker finally made his attack. Before either femme could react, a series of laserfire rained down on them from directly above, forcing them to spring apart. Dinobot spun and directed laserfire of her own up into the air. Airazor followed the warrioress's lead and aimed her blaster upwards. She still saw no sign of their attacker. A thick, roiling ceiling of ugly gray clouds hung low in the sky, pregnant with an impending snowstorm. It was excellent cover for an aerial attack. Airazor blindly fired into the air with Dinobot, hoping to drive out their attacker from behind his cover into the open.

Before the two could fire off more than a dozen rounds, two bands of solidified blue energy suddenly shot out from a cloud patch slightly to Airazor's right. The bands were expertly aimed, catching Dinobot and Airazor both squarely around their chests. Airazor grunted as she was knocked sideways to the ground by the blow, her arms pinning down against her sides. Her blaster was knocked from her grasp and landed several yards away from her in a snowdrift. Dinobot thrashed on the ground beside her, her arms pinned against her sides as well. The warrioress had been disarmed the same as Airazor. Her sword was nowhere to be seen. Dinobot's optics hummed bright green as she aimed her gaze downwards at the glowing blue energy holding her captive and fired. Her laser blast harmlessly ricocheted off the blue band as if repelled by the alien energy and hit the ground with a sizzling hiss. Airazor strained against her restraints. Whatever this strange energy holding them was was unlike anything Airazor had ever seen before. It was as unyielding as tempered steel and the more she struggled the weaker she felt herself become. It was almost as if the glowing blue bands of energy were leeching her of strength.

"Your struggles are useless, meddlers," a deep voice rumbled above them. "Those energy bands are designed to drain their victims of energy the more they try to resist."

Airazor and Dinobot both looked up. There, hovering a dozen feet above the ground, floated a strange looking mech. He was neither tall nor short by what Airazor could tell from her position on the ground. He had strange transmetal-looking armor. Blue and white plated, the mech sported a pair of feathered transmetal wings. A missile launcher was mounted on each of his shoulders. But the feature that struck Airazor the most was the mech's visored face. Although his optics were more yellow now than green as she remembered, she instantly knew him.

"Tigatron?" she whispered as the winged version of her lover dropped through the air to land only several feet away from where she and Dinobot lay trussed on the ground. Awkwardly without the help of her arms, she crawled to her knees to properly face him. Shock and happiness threatened to overwhelm her as she stared at her changed lover. "Tigatron, you're still alive," she said in a trembling voice. She felt a watery smile break across her face. A broken half-sob, half-laugh of relief escaped her mouth. "I thought you'd been killed in that alien beam. I was so worried I'd never see you again. You don't know how much I've missed you."

The winged mech studied Airazor for a long moment of silence. "Do I know you?" he rumbled, his stony features blank of any kind of recognition.

Airazor froze, a cold feeling spreading through her superstructure at her lover's question. Her spark gave a painful spasm in her chest. "What? Don't you recognize me, Tigatron? It's me, Airazor. We were partners. We went on missions together all the time before you disappeared. We were lovers. Once you told me you wanted to become my sparkmate after this war was over. Don't… don't you remember, Tigatron? Don't you remember me?"

"The one called Tigatron no longer exists," the blue and white mech said in a chillingly distant voice. "The one you see before you is Tigerhawk. The Vox made sure to cleanse this body's mind of all previous memories before they reformatted it to be their messenger to the intruders destroying this planet."

Airazor felt her mech-fluid run completely cold. She was sure she just felt her spark extinguish in the center of her chest. Despair that made her anguish after Tigatron's disappearance seem like nothing more than a passing ache blossomed through her. It threatened to choke her with her own grief. "No. You have to remember me," she stubbornly insisted. "You have to remember the time we spent together and the promises we made each other of what we'd do once the fighting was over. _Please_, Tigatron. You have to remember."

"If I knew you once before I have no memory of you now," Tigatron - no, _Tigerhawk_, grimly informed her. "The only memories the Vox left me are their orders for me here."

"And what are those orders?" Dinobot snarled from beside Airazor. Airazor barely heard her companion's question. All she could do was stare at the mech who had once been her lover and mourn what he had become.

Tigerhawk turned his attention to the warrioress. "The Vox are the creators of this planet. You and the others with you have ruined their experiment. If that had been all, my masters might have turned a blind eye on your meddling and turned their attention to other experiments. But now your little war threatens to destroy not only this planet but the universe's entire time continuum as well. My masters will not stand for this. The ones responsible for this disruption must be eliminated before too much irreparable damage is done." The alien fuzor leaned closer to the two femmes and studied them through narrowed optics. "You are not the ones I seek, however." He gave Dinobot an extra hard look. "You look like one of the two I was sent to destroy, but you are not her. That one's life force is steeped in shadows."

Tigerhawk stood straight and took a step back from them. He held one hand out towards them. A ball of glowing white light appeared around his hand. For a moment Airazor thought he was going to kill them. Instead, the bands of blue energy holding her and Dinobot dissolved and disappeared. The light around Tigerhawk's hand faded.

"I grant you mercy this one time as my masters only gave orders for the destruction of the two who seek to destroy Time," Tigerhawk said. "But I will not grant mercy to you or any of the other meddlers again if you try to interfere with my mission. If you do you will become collateral damage and I will not be responsible for your deactivation. Relay this message to the rest of your comrades."

That said, the alien fuzor spread his wings and shot up into the sky. Within the shutter of an optic he was lost in the churning vortex of angry black storm clouds. The howl of wind became deafening as snow began to fill the air in shifting curtains of white.

Somewhere beyond the edge of her peripheral vision Airazor heard Dinobot pull herself to her pedes and reclaim her sword from where it'd been knocked to the ground. The crunch of Dinobot's taloned feet against the icy ground came closer until they stopped directly behind her. Airazor did not turn to acknowledge her. All she could do was emptily stare in the direction her former lover had disappeared. For several moments Dinobot stood behind her as if unsure of what to say.

Finally, the warrioress seemed to find her voice. "Come," she growled in a voice that might have almost been called gentle. "We must inform Optimus and the others of this."

"Alright…" Airazor murmured, her voice as empty as the wind whistling around them. Somehow - she didn't know how - she managed to find her feet and shakily stand. As if in an automated daze, she transformed and forced her wings to lift her into the air. The trek back to base was a blur. Airazor couldn't have said how long it took them to reach the Axalon. All she could think about was the alien-mutated version of Tigatron the forces of the universe had returned to her as a cruel answer to her prayers.

* * *

"Wait? _What?_" Switchblade exclaimed, his optic ridged furrowed together in a knot underneath the nose guard of his helm. He stared at Dinobot as if waiting for her to say that everything she'd just told them was a joke.

After a long, hurried journey back to base Dinobot and Airazor had immediately called Optimus and the rest of the crew together to tell them what they'd found in the desolate northern tundra. They were all gathered on the Axalon's command deck. Airazor stood by herself on the far side of the bridge away from everyone else. The flier had said next to nothing since Tigerhawk released them. She seemed lost in a daze. Dinobot hadn't tried to force her to talk. She knew Airazor was taking the reappearance of her lover especially hard, but she had no idea what she was expected to say or do to try to ease the flier's pain. The realm of emotions had never been an area of social interactions she's studied or cared much about. If a situation required action that did not involve a drawn sword or blaster the warrioress was at a loss for how to proceed. Emotional interactions were not part of a warrior's training.

"You heard me, Switch," Dinobot hissed. "Tigatron has returned. But as an emissary for the Vox - the aliens that created this planet and its inhabitants."

"But… that doesn't make any sense," Switch insisted with a shell-shocked look of confusion. "Tigatron was never seen again in my timeline after he disappeared. He's been listed as missing in action for the last seventy-some years."

Dinobot leveled an annoyed look at her son. "And I am telling you that Tigatron has returned as some kind of transmetal fuzor named Tigerhawk."

"How is this possible?" Switch numbly demanded. "This just doesn't make sense. Tigatron was never found in my timeline. How is he here now?"

"Perhaps Depthcharge and your presence has changed something in this timeline to have allowed this change," Rhinox said. A troubled look settled over the engineer's face. "If you just being here's already manipulated history this much from what's already happened, it makes me wonder what other kinds of changes are possible…"

"Let's forget about the _how_ of Tigatron, Tigerhawk, or whatever-the-frag-his-name-is being back for just a second and focus on the _why_," Blackarachnia snapped. "What's this all mean for us now?"

Optimus's expression was troubled. "He said he came back to prevent the time continuum from being disrupted anymore, yet he did not actually harm Dinobot or Airazor. This leads me to believe he means to go after Megatron."

"And Talon," Dinobot interjected. "He made special mention that he was searching for two targets and that I looked like one of them. No doubt the Vox want to eliminate any chance of Talon carrying on Megatron's work after he's eliminated."

"Well, I say good," Rattrap said from the warrioress's side. Their sparkling son lay cradled in his arms, recharging. "Let dis new Tigerhawk take care of Megs while we kick back an' watch da show. If he wants ta take out ol' dark an' ugly it'll only make our job easier."

"Who's to say he will not come after us once he finishes with the Predacons?" Silverbolt said.

Dinobot shook her helm. "If he meant us harm he would have already done so when he had Airazor and I subdued. I believe he means to only go after Megatron and Talon. He made it very clear what he will do to any of us, however, if we interfere."

Rattrap gave Dinobot a sideways look. "Den why is dis even an issue? Dis is like a gift from Primus. All we hafta do is just stay outta da way an' dis guy'll finish da war fer us. Done an' done, an' we can focus on findin' a way off dis spinnin' ball 'a dirt."

Dinobot admitted the prospect did have its merits. With Megatron and Talon gone, the Predacons would be sent into complete disorder. They would most likely kill each other fighting for leadership in the absence of one strong bot like Megatron or Talon to take command and keep them in line. They would never be able to mount attacks on them like they had in the past and, just as Rattrap said, the Maximals would be able to focus their time and energy on finding a way back to modern Cybertron instead of continually thwarting Megatron's plans. There was only one thing stopping Dinobot from openly agreeing with her sparkmate's plan. No matter what advantages this Tigerhawk eliminating their enemies had, the idea of passively standing by as someone else finished the war without her rankled Dinobot's sense of duty and ate at her neural network like potassium acid.

Optimus, however, saved Dinobot from openly disagreeing with her sparkmate. "Rattrap, as nice as it would be to put a permanent end to this war, we cannot just stand aside and let two bots to be murdered in cold blood. It goes against everything we Maximals stand for."

"Wha-! Optimus!" Rattrap screeched in disbelief. Switch warbled in his sleep and squirmed in his father's arms at Rattrap's raised voice. The spy distractedly pat his back to quiet him. "Dis is Megatron and Talon we're talkin' bout," he snarled in a lower voice. "They'd murder us all in our sleep without a second thought if dey could. You saw 'em when they came lookin' fer dat second gold disk. Ginzu Fingers would'a cut Switch's head off if Choppa'face hadn't given her dat disk! No one who threatens ta kill a sparkling needs any kinda help from me!"

"I admit Megatron and Talon subscribe to harsher definitions of war than anyone else, but that does not change the fact that what this Tigerhawk plans to do is murder."

"This is _war_, Optimus," Blackarachnia spat. "You Maximals don't seem to understand it's either kill or be killed in this game. I can tell you from personal experience that Megatron wouldn't have any kind of qualms standing back and watching if someone came gunning for you. If it helps ease your conscience, think of Tigerhawk as a political assassin. I know from the history records that other Maximals haven't had much trouble seeking professional services from assassins from time to time themselves."

"I don't know, big bot," Cheetor hesitantly spoke up. "Blackarachnia's got a point. It might be better for everyone if we just did nothing and let things play out."

"But ultimately at what cost?" Rhinox interjected. "These aliens that sent Tigerhawk said they want to put an end to Megatron's meddling with the time continuum. But by doing so, they may be causing unknown damage to the time continuum themselves. Tigerhawk being here shows how much known history's already changed just from Switchblade and Depthcharge's coming through the transwarp tunnel. Who knows what other changes might occur now. If we aren't careful about how we proceed there's no guarantee the Maximals will win the Beast Wars like we did in Switch's timeline. For all we know Tigerhawk being here might be the turning point that completely changes everything we think we know will happen."

Out of the corner of her optic, Dinobot saw Switchblade's facial plates grow dark with troubled thoughts. "So what do we do?" he asked with a hesitant glance first to her, then Optimus.

"We keep our optics open for the first sign of Tigerhawk planning an attack against the Predacons," Optimus said. "We have no idea if he means to attack them head-on or wait until Megatron and Talon come off the ship and make themselves easier targets. Once he makes his move though we have to be ready to step in and stop him."

"And frag Tigerhawk off enough in da process ta make us his next target," Rattrap darkly murmured.

"If it comes to that, yes," Optimus admitted. "We have to maintain our perspective in this despite however hard it might be. We have no idea what might happen if Megatron and Talon are assassinated. They and the Predacons are our enemies, yes. But their deaths might start a chain reaction that could endanger this planet and our chances of ever returning to Cybertron. We've already seen what kind of repercussions actions taken in this time can have on the future like with the proto-humans in the valley. Our actions here effect the future of countless lives both here on Earth and Cybertron. For our sakes as well as the sakes of all future generations to come, nothing less than the utmost care must taken."

A begrudged murmur of acquiescence went through the assembled group of Maximals. Dinobot respected their leader's caution for what effects Tigerhawk's appearance might have on history, but that didn't mean she was happy with the idea of protecting Megatron and her deranged clone from assassination. If she had her way she would gladly see both their heads staked on poles outside the Predacons' warship.

"Okay, so Tigatron's back as Tigerhawk," Cheetor said. "But what I want to know is where he got this new look of his. Where'd these Vox get the DNA to add a second half to his beast mode?"

"Isn't it obvious?" a hollow voice croaked from the far corner of the bridge. Everyone turned to find Airazor staring back at them with empty optics. Dinobot had almost forgotten she was there she'd been so quiet and withdrawn from the conversation.

Airazor took a step closer to the circle of bots. Even Dinobot, as emotional inept as she was, would have had to have been blind not to see how harried the flier looked. The protomatter around her optics was pinched and her optics haunted. The flier looked like she was teetering dangerously close to a breakdown.

"When Tigatron was taken by that plant, it tore out some of my beast mode feathers while I was fighting to get away," Airazor hollowly intoned. "A few of them must have been zapped away in that alien beam along with Tigatron." Her voice became noticeably more strained as though she was having trouble keeping it from breaking. "Those aliens must have used my DNA to turn Tigatron into this… Tigerhawk. They used a part of _me_ to turn him into some kind of hybrid monster. They want to punish us for messing with their planet. That's why they sent him back here like this. But you want to know the worst part is about Tigatron coming back is?" she demanded in a noticeably shriller tone. "He remembers nothing of who he used to be! He didn't even remember _me_! He doesn't remember a thing about all the time we spent together or what we planned to do after this Primus-forsaken war was over!"

"Airazor," Optimus gently said, stepping closer to her, "I can't even begin to imagine what this must be like for you. To have someone so close to you returned without any memory of you after everything you've already suffered must be one of the most horrible things someone could be forced to endure." He tried to put a reassuring hand on Airazor's shoulder plate but the flier ducked out of his reach and scurried backwards several feet, her facial plates a confused, angry contortion of emotions.

"I don't want your sympathies, Optimus, and I don't want your pity!" She continued to back away from him and the others towards the entrance of the bridge. She swept over-bright optics around the room, eyeing everyone there. "I don't want any of your pity either. All I want is Tigatron - the mech I used to know - back!"

Optimus took a step closer to her. "Airazor-"

But the female flier turned and darted out the door before he could say anything else.

An uncomfortable silence descended over the bridge as Optimus turned back to the rest of them. He caught Dinobot's optics and held them for a moment before giving a dejected, helpless sigh that seemed to come from the very bottom of his spark. "Slag…" he muttered as he trudged back to the group. "I should have handled that better."

"Airazor's hold on her emotions has been strained ever since we started back from the north," Dinobot reassured him. "It was nothing you said. Airazor's emotional turmoil over Tigatron's return has been building for some time now. It was inevitable it would eventually boil over her self-control."

Before she'd even finished speaking the warrioress noticed the strange stares everyone was giving her. Dinobot shifted uncomfortably under their scrutiny. "What?"

"Uh, don't 'cha think ya should… I don't know, go talk ta Airazor now 'er something?" Rattrap said.

Dinobot's optic ridges scrunched together in honest confusion. "What? Why would I do that?"

"I'm sure Airazor would appreciate someone to talk to despite the way she just left," Silverbolt said. "When upset about sensitive things like this people sometimes like to talk about their troubles with trusted friends."

Dinobot's optics narrowed warily. "I recognize the premise…" she hesitantly murmured, "But why should it be me who goes after her to… talk?"

"You spend the most time with her," Optimus said. "You know her best."

"I do not," Dinobot automatically denied. She was mortified that her comrades seemed to think she held such a close relationship with the other femme. Warriors shunned familiarity with others. "And even if I did, I do not see why that makes it my responsibility to be the one for Airazor to cry on." It was true she, Airazor, and even Blackarachnia spent a fair amount of time in each other's presence, and, yes, she'd even come to appreciate a little bit more the subtle niceties of being in the company of other femmes, but that didn't mean she considered herself anymore qualified to deal with the distraught flier than anyone else.

"Mom, Airazor looks up to you," Switchblade sighed. "In my timeline if it wasn't for you Airazor would've, like, given up living decades ago. You're the closest thing she has to a friend and she needs someone right now." The young raptor stared at her, his optics beseeching.

"See," Rattrap smirked. "Even Switch is sayin' ya need ta go have some quality femme-time with Airazor."

Dinobot shot her sparkmate a dirty glare out of the corner of her optic. One side of her lips curled up in an annoyed snarl.

"Please, Dinobot," Optimus implored. "I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think anyone else but you could handle it."

Dinobot growled softly through her teeth. Curse Primal to the Pits. Leave it to him to appeal to her sense of honor and pride.

"Fine," she snarled in defeat. "I'll go talk with Airazor. But I want it known that I have never had to handhold another through an emotional crisis before. It was never part of my warrior training." She hesitated a moment before reluctantly adding, "But I will do what I can…"

She ignored the tendril of teasing amusement she felt over her and Rattrap's sparkbond. Stalking towards the door Airazor had just disappeared Dinobot grabbed Blackarachnia by the wrist as she walked past, pulling her along behind her.

"Hey! Why are you dragging me along? I'm just as helpless in this department as you are."

"Because I refuse to be subjugated to this alone," Dinobot snarled back over her shoulder. "If I must deal with this annoying aspect of female interaction, then I demand that I have backup. And seeing as how you are the only other femme on this crew, that duty falls onto you."

Blackarachnia's reply was a colorful expletive that would have made Silverbolt's face flush with mech-fluid if he'd heard. Luckily, Dinobot had already pulled her unwilling companion out the door and out of earshot.

* * *

It took almost half an hour, but Dinobot and Blackarachnia finally found Airazor sitting on the bottom step of one of the two main stairwells leading down to the ship's third deck. The flier didn't look up to acknowledge them as they came closer and stopped in front of her. She barely seemed to recognize their presence at all, if truth be told. All she did was continue to emptily stare at the ground by her feet, her optics distant and unfocused.

"About time," Blackarachnia sourly groused. She stood with both pinchers propped on her hip joints. "I was afraid we were going to have to search this entire ship before we finally tracked you down."

Dinobot shot Blackarachnia a cold look. "Hold your tongue, widow. I didn't bring you here to grumble and complain."

"I didn't want to come at all but you made me, so you're going to deal with whatever I decide to say."

Dinobot did not reply except to give Blackarachnia a dark, warning glare. The black widow met her glare undaunted, but intelligently did not say anything else. Dinobot turned back to the silent flier on the stairs. She immediately got to the point of why they were there. "The other crewmembers are worried about the impact Tigatron's return is having on you, but said that you might prefer talking to other femmes about Tigatron's return. Optimus sent Blackarachnia and me to see to you."

"He sent _you_, actually," Blackarachnia hissed, sotto voice. "_I_ got dragged along against my will."

Airazor still refused to look up at them, her empty gaze firmly fixed on the floor. "I don't want to talk," she mumbled.

"See? Job done. Let's go," Blackarachnia said, already turning away back towards the way they'd come.

Dinobot, however, hesitated. Despite her reluctance to become involved in another's emotional troubles, it didn't feel right to leave so quickly now that she was there. She'd never seen Airazor like this before, even after she'd returned to the ship after Tigatron disappeared. Airazor looked haggard and lost. Her optics were empty pools of loneliness and grief. Despite her personal disdain for such emotional weakness, Dinobot felt her spark soften at the sight of the other femme's pain. She sometimes forgot how vulnerable Maximals were when it came to things like matters of the heart. It was a weakness she felt had no right to exist, especially in the midst of a war, but Dinobot had sworn allegiance to the Maximals and everything their faction entailed - from their honor on the battlefield to their soft-sparked ways off it. Airazor was her sworn sister-in-arms and Optimus had assigned her the task of seeing that the flier was lifted out of her haze of misery and made a strong crewmember again.

"It does no good to mourn what you cannot change," she brusquely told Airazor. "Your grief is wasted here. It will not bring the Tigatron you knew back."

Airazor surprised Dinobot with a hollow snort. "You're always such the motivator, aren't you, Dinobot?" The scathing sarcasm in her voice even made Blackarachnia give pause. Dinobot flickered her optics in surprise. She had never heard the soft-spoken femme speak so darkly. Slowly, Airazor lifted her helm to look at Dinobot and Blackarachnia through glazed optics. "You think everyone is as strong as you are. Well, I for one am not. I wasn't programmed as a warrior or fighter. I'm not strong enough to just shrug my shoulders and go on with my life like nothing happened after having the mech I loved and thought was dead come back to me with no memory of anything we had together. I'm sorry, but I'm just not that strong."

"That still doesn't make sitting down here by yourself in the dark likely to change anything," Blackarachnia pointed out. Even Dinobot winced at the spider's tactlessness, despite the truth of it.

Airazor made a soft scoffing sound in the back of her intake line. "It's so easy for you two to judge when you still have the mechs you love waiting for you upstairs." Her optics sluggishly rolled towards Dinobot and held the warrioress's gaze. "What would you do if Rattrap was taken away from you and returned with no memory of you or who he'd been? How would you handle it?"

Unpleasant memories swam to the forefront of Dinobot's processor. She still remembered the stab of agony that'd assaulted her when she'd thought Rattrap had been killed by Quickstrike while they'd been caught up bickering over the ship's comm-link line what felt like a lifetime and a half ago. The panic and fear she'd felt when the spy's side of the link had gone silent had been enough to trigger her son's delivery sequence and induce labor. She also remembered how she'd felt as she knelt in the valley of the proto-humans with Rattrap slowly dying in her arms. She remembered vividly the anguish, horror and panic she'd felt. When she'd thought her lover had been killed by Quickstrike she remembered blindly lashing out at Optimus in her grief and then spending the next few hours wallowing in empty grief between realignment pains before being told they'd miraculously made radio contact with Cheetor and the spy.

Dinobot knew that if Rattrap had died either time she would have forced herself to soldier on and continue to fight the same way she'd always done. But she also knew that she would have never been the same afterwards if the worst had happened. Without a doubt she would have hidden her grief from her comrades and gone about her duties. But alone in her quarters late at night when no one else was around to see, how would she have dealt with her pain? That was a question Dinobot didn't want to even contemplate. The rat had wormed his way deeper into her spark than she generally cared to admit - and that was even _before_ she'd sparkbonded with the noxious-smelling rodent.

Dinobot growled in defeat. Stalking towards the stairs, she sat heavily down beside Airazor on the steps. Blackarachnia huffed in annoyance but dutifully trudged after her. She gave Dinobot's knees a harsh slap with the side of her pincher to make her move her legs enough to be able sit on the step below Airazor and Dinobot.

"As I've already informed Optimus, I do not know what is expected of me in situations like this," Dinobot uncomfortably grumbled. "Are we expected to… talk now?"

Airazor wearily shrugged her shoulder plates. "I don't really feel like talking right now."

"Then what can we do to convince you to get off these stairs and come back up with us?" Blackarachnia asked. She casually leaned backwards against Dinobot's legs and stretched her own out in front of her. Dinobot didn't bother reminding Blackarachnia that she did not like to be touched in such a familiar fashion - doing so would only entice Blackarachnia to make herself even more comfortable as punishment for Dinobot dragging her along after Airazor.

"I don't know," Airazor emptily murmured. "Just… stay with me for awhile? While I try to figure things out?"

Dinobot nodded her assent. It was a simple enough request that did not require any social skills. Lapsing into silence, the three femmes remained in a close huddle on the staircase. Airazor by now had already slipped back into grief-tainted thought while Dinobot tried not to think too much about what Airazor had asked her.

She did not like what her answer was.

* * *

It was several hours before Dinobot and Blackarachnia were finally able to convince Airazor to leave her spot on the staircase and return to the upper levels of the ship. By the time they came back up, night had fallen and most of their comrades had drifted away to their personal quarters for the evening. Dinobot saw to it that Airazor was safely escorted to her personal quarters before she left to go in search of her family. Switchblade she found with Cheetor on the bridge playing a game of cards and bid the two of them goodnight. When she checked on her infant son she found him already laid down for the night in Rattrap's former room and recharging soundly. She turned her feet towards her and her sparkmate's quarters. Keying open the door, she entered to find her sparkmate already in bed.

Rattrap lay stretched out on his back in the middle of their berth, his optics dark and his air vents cycling gently. A data pad lay facedown on his chest where it had slipped from his finger when he'd drifted into recharge reading it. Dinobot took the moment to study her sleeping sparkmate. Asleep, the spy looked even smaller and more delicate then he usually did. Unbidden, Airazor's question once again whispered in the back of Dinobot's mind. And once again she tried not to admit just how much the sharp-tongued little rodent had come to mean to her.

Gripped by the sudden intense urge to physically hold onto what was hers, Dinobot slid onto the berth beside her sparkmate and pulled him tightly against her.

Rattrap was startled awake by the powerful arms suddenly wrapped around him. "Huh? Wha-?" His optics flickered online and swung up to focus on her face. "Choppa'face… yer back."

Dinobot nodded. She silently urged him to roll onto his side to face her and pulled him even closer to her chest. She held him tightly. Protectively. Possessively.

"Wha's with you, Lizard Lips?" Rattrap asked with a confused look. Usually it was him who came to her seeking physical closeness. "Somethin' wrong?"

"No," Dinobot murmured, relishing the gentle thrum of Rattrap's spark pulsing against his chest plate next to hers. "Just… let me savor this for a moment."

Whether sensing something in her voice or some stray emotion across their bond, the spy fell quiet and did not pester her for anymore explanations. Relaxing into her arms, he snaked his own arm over her waist to hold her a little bit closer himself.

Resting in each other's arms, Dinobot grudgingly admitted to herself what she'd refused to confess to Airazor earlier:

She would die if anyone ever took the one she loved away from her.

_to be continued…_

The plot should pick up more next chapter when everything that's been building up hit's the proverbial fan. I'm quite looking forward to it myself. Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Reviews are always welcome. Peace out.


	7. Setting the Board

**Chapter Seven: Setting the Board **

Images and paragraphs of Cybertronian glyphs filled the screen of the computer in Megatron's personal quarters. The warlord's optics quickly scanned through the list of data files he'd downloaded from the Darksyde's mainframe. They were files on the Great War. Pictures, maps, narratives of different battles and personal bios of the war's key soldiers - both Autobot and Decepticons - were included. There was solar-cycles' worth of information to be read and studied, but all Megatron wanted to find was a single image. He needed it to compare to the topographical scan Waspinator had brought him earlier that day. He'd been scanning through the files for the last two hours, but try as he might Megatron could not locate the image he wanted.

"Curse this computer to the Pit," he growled as he opened yet another data file. "Ever since Dinobot snuck onboard, stole those gold disks and destroyed my backup files, this computer only works at half the speed it once did."

Talon looked up from where she sat on the edge of his berth. She was in the middle of sharpening her finger blades with a whetting stone. The grating hiss of the stone against the edge of the femme's namesake weapons had become a soothing white noise to Megatron as he worked. As usual, Megatron had summoned Talon to spend the night with him in his quarters. He'd been too distracted by the Darksyde's massive data library, however, to indulge in any liberties with his consort. The next phase of the Beast Wars hinged on what he saw in the elusive image he sought…

Talon set her whetting stone aside on the berth pad. "What is it you're looking for, my Lord? Perhaps I can assist you." She got up and came to Megatron's side. She looked down over his shoulder at the computer screen. "Data files of the Great War?" Megatron heard the confusion in her voice. "Why are you researching the Great War, my Lord?"

Megatron continued to relentlessly open and close data files. "Waspinator brought me a deep-layer topographical scan of an area one hundred klicks southwest of here. I doubt the bumbling idiot knew what he'd stumbled across, but he might have just found me the ace-in-the-hole that will win us the Beasts Wars and allow the Predacons to finally take control of Cybertron."

"You are speaking the same way you did when you deciphered the gold disks and followed the glyphs to that valley with the proto-humans." Although she tried to hide it, Megatron heard the note of cautious doubt in her voice. "What is it that Waspinator found in the middle of nowhere that could tip the war in our favor?"

Megatron's optics continued to scan the contents of each new screen as he opened and closed data files in rapid succession. "When I ordered the attack on the proto-humans I was thinking too small in scale. I thought that by changing just a small part of history, I could help ensure the Decepticons' victory. I now realize that if I want to influence history I must take a more direct approach. I will not submit quietly to the future that insolent son of Dinobot's spoke of. I mean to go directly to the source of the Predacons and Decepticons' defeat."

"I trust you in anything you plan, my Lord, but I am still confused at to what Waspinator could have possibly found to-"

In the bottom right hand corner of the data file he'd just opened Megatron caught sight of the image he'd been searching for. "There!" he crowed in triumph. He enlarged the image to half the size of the screen. In the other half he opened the topographical scan Waspinator had brought him. He zoomed in on it until the image was the same size as the historical photograph beside it. He glanced at Talon with a victorious grin.

Talon drew in a startled intake of air. "Is that…?"

"Yes," Megatron nodded. In both pictures was the image of the same starship, taken several million years apart from each other. In the historical file's image, only its rear thrusters were visible where they stuck out from the side of a long-extinct volcano. Megatron could see more details of it in the deep-level scan Waspinator had brought him. In it he could see the entire outline of the ship nestled in the heart of the volcano. Although they were taken from different angles and showed different parts of the ship, there was no doubt in Megatron's processor that they were images of the _same_ ship, just as he had hoped.

Talon was thunderstruck. Her single optic stared at the twin images in disbelief. "But that's…"

"The Ark," Megatron grinned. "The Autobot starship that crash landed on primitive Earth several million years before its Autobot and Decepticon passengers wake in the common human era of 1984 and begin the last stage of the Great War. I am not going to waste anymore time playing with Primal and his little band of do-gooders. I intend to go directly to the source of our problem and eliminate the Maximals before they ever even existed. With the Autobots gone - and with them the Maximals - nothing will stand in my way of world conquest."

Megatron turned in his seat towards Talon. Reaching out, he wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. "How would you like to be queen of two planets instead of just one?"

A slow, vicious grin spread across Talon's face. "I would like that very much, my Lord," she purred as she delicately wrapped razor-sharpened hands around each side of the warlord's neck. "But only if it is you who is my king."

Megatron reply was a grin.

Nothing could stop them now.

* * *

Switchblade sat at one of the Axalon's computer stations. He had just turned on the ship's long-range scanner and was waiting for it to finish powering up. It had become a habit of his to check his rogue partner's location every morning since Depthcharge decided to strike it out on his own. Usually he found the ex-security officer skulking somewhere near the edge of Predacon territory or close to the planethopper they had come to primitive Earth in. Switch had tried contacting Depthcharge several times over their comm-links whenever he saw Depthcharge wandering closer to Maximal territory. Unfortunately, if Switch wasn't outright ignored by the rogue avenger, all he usually got for his troubles was a short - usually rude - response from the mech before the comm-link line was abruptly cut off.

The young velociraptor gave a heavy sigh. Even now, almost two weeks after Depthcharge left the Axalon to hunt Protoform X, Switchblade still had moments of doubts about whether he should have gone with Depthcharge or not. He and Depthcharge had come to planet Earth with a specific mission: to hunt down and kill Protoform X. If not for the Cheetor he'd looked up to like an older brother in his youth, then for the countless innocent lives lost both on modern Earth and modern Cybertron he had to prevent X's second killing spree. But with the exception of his one encounter with X when he and Cheetor had been captured and woke up on the Darksyde, Switch had not seen hide nor hair of the slobbering psychopath since.

Switchblade resisted the urge to growl. Instead, he began to angrily drum the tips of his claws on the chair's armrest. The long-range scanner had finally finished booting up. It began scanning for Depthcharge's energy signature.

Since arriving on Earth nothing had gone the way he'd hoped it would. Even now - several weeks after identifying himself to these younger versions of his parents and family friends - he was still no closer to fulfilling his mission than he'd been when he and Depthcharge first stepped off the security officer's starship. The High Council hadn't given them any kind of deadline to complete their mission by, but Switchblade couldn't help but feel they were beginning to run out of time. So much rode on him and Depthcharge permanently removing X from the time continuum. If they failed there was no saying how many deaths would be on their hands.

But what worried Switchblade even more than the imaginary feel of Time tightening its noose around him was the series of recent events. First that odd meteoroid hit in the north and then Tigatron's unexpected return as a transmetal fuzor. Things were straying so far away from the history Switchblade had learned from historical records and at his mother's knees as a youngling. In his timeline Tigatron had never been recovered. When the Axalon's crew returned to modern Cybertron his name had been put in the official records as missing in action, never to be seen again.

_Have me and Depthcharge really changed things that much?_ Switchblade wondered, not for the first time.

A sour feeling similar to dread clawed at the bottom of his fuel tanks. He had no idea what Tigatron's appearance meant for history as he knew it. How would the Beast Wars end now when so much had already changed? How much more could history change? Switch did not want to speculate. What first had seemed like an easy, straightforward mission to prevent his childhood idol from dying, saving the lives of millions of Cybertronians and humans, and a chance to see his parents, family friends and himself in their younger years had quickly spiraled into an increasingly uncertain fight against the unknown. In his timeline the Axalon crew had all returned to Cybertron alive. But now, with history slowly shifting further and further away from what Switch once took to be immutable fact, Switchblade was forced to wonder if any of his friends and family's survival was still guaranteed. He had come back to primitive Earth to ensure the death of Protoform X and in doing so change history for the better. He just never considered that by doing so he might inadvertently change the Maximal crew's own chances of surviving the war as well. All he could do was hope that Tigatron's return did not change things too drastically against their favor.

The scanner was still working, sweeping back and forth across the surface of primitive Earth.

_Come on,_ Switch irritably scowled. Usually he had no trouble finding Depthcharge's energy signature. The rogue usually stayed within a hundred miles of the Axalon. But today the computer had had to automatically widen its search to a hundred fifty-mile, then a two hundred-mile radius in search of the manta ray's energy signature.

Switchblade leaned closer to the screen. _Where are you, Depthcharge?_ Annoyance slowly morphed into concern. Why couldn't the computer detect Depthcharge? Had he really traveled that far out of the Axalon's perimeter in his hunt for X? Or couldn't the scanners pick up his energy signature because something had happened to the security officer?

Before Switch's processor could follow that morbid line of thought very far, the scanner pinged with its result. Switchblade zoomed in on his missing partner's location. The scanner had located Depthcharge almost two hundred and fifty miles southwest of the Axalon. From what Switch could tell from the topographical scan of the surrounding area there was nothing there but stretches of desolate wilderness.

Why would Depthcharge have gone to what was for all intents and purposes was the middle of nowhere? What could he possibly have found there to make him break off his hunt for Protoform X?

_Unless…_

Switch deactivated the scanner's lock on Depthcharge's personal energy signature and opened it to detect all Cybertronian energy signatures. Almost immediately the scanner reported its results. Five other energy signals - none of them Maximal - blinked into existence on the screen only half a mile or so from Depthcharge's current location.

Switchblade reached over to the far side of the computer terminal and clicked on the ship's internal comm system. "Um… Optimus?" he called into the microphone. "I think we may have a problem."

The feeling of ominous dismay in his fuel tanks grew stronger.

* * *

It was late afternoon by the time Dinobot, Switchblade, and Cheetor skid to a halt behind an outcropping of rocks a mile away from where Switch had detected Depthcharge and half of the Predacons' energy signatures. The rest of their convoy - the fliers: Airazor, Silverbolt and Optimus with Blackarachnia hitching a ride on his jet board - touched down beside them. Rhinox and Rattrap had been left behind to guard the ship and watch over younger Switch.

Dinobot was the first to transform into her bi-pedal form. Her sword was already in her hand before her transformation sequence completely finished. Behind her, she heard the others do the same.

An empty landscape of arid rocks stretched out around them in all directions. The only thing to break up the otherwise desolate land were rocky hills and cliffs. Dinobot cautiously scanned the surrounding ridges and overhanging ledges of the hills. Her lips pressed into a frown. The area was ripe with potential hiding spots for enemy attack. Her grip on her sword hilt unconsciously tightened.

"Stay close," Optimus cautioned as they grouped together behind a large stand of rocks. Dinobot joined the huddle next to her son. The young velociraptor had been unusually quiet since they left the Axalon. "We want to try and find out what Megatron's up to out here before we start a firefight."

"That's all fine and dandy for us," Switchblade said, "but I wouldn't put it past Depthcharge to start shooting as soon as he sees Protoform X."

"Are you still getting his signal on the tracker?"

Switch removed a portable energy tracker from a subspace compartment on his hip and flicked it on. It immediately began to beep. "Yeah. It doesn't look like he's moved that much from where I spotted him earlier this morning. Megatron and the others Preds are still grouped together half a mile from Depthcharge. That could be good or bad. Depthcharge might still running reconnaissance, or he could be injured and unable to move."

Dinobot noticed the way her son's facial plates tightened around the corners of his optics and mouth as he said this. It was an unconscious expression she recognized from her sparkmate. Rattrap made the same expression whenever he was troubled by something.

"Depthcharge's energy signal is still registering on the tracker, which means he is still functional," she spoke up. "If he is injured, then that means Megatron will more than likely be expecting us. If the manta ray is still assessing the situation, then we still have the element of surprise on our side."

"I could fly overhead and get a visual on the Predacons," Silverbolt offered.

Optimus shook his head. "No. We don't want to let Megatron know we're here just yet. We should try to join up with Depthcharge first. If he is injured, then we'll need to help him. If he's still scouting - which I'm hoping he is - then we'll be able to find out what Megatron's up to and get all the details from him before charging onto the scene."

Dinobot's scowl deepened. She wasn't thrilled with Optimus's plan. She wanted to know what Megatron was doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere with at least four other Predacons, and she wanted to know _now_. Whatever it was could not be good. Her first instinct was to attack and find out details later. The warrioress kept her opinions on this to herself, however. Optimus was her commanding officer and she already knew what he would say if she tried to convince him to attack first instead of searching Depthcharge out. She honestly cared little if the manta ray was injured or not. He had decided to go out alone, and by doing so was responsible for whatever the consequences of his decision were himself. He was not part of the Axalon's crew, and thus not technically her comrade and none of her concern. He was, however, Switchblade's comrade. And that was the only thing that made Dinobot quietly accept Optimus's plan of action. Although Switchblade and Depthcharge seemed to hold little love for each other, it was obvious her son was concerned about his partner's wellbeing. She doubted he'd agree to move in without first seeing if the other mech was still functional. For a brief moment, Dinobot wondered if she'd done the right thing allowing such soft-sparked sentiments be instilled in her son, but then decided they made up part of Switch's personal sense of honor and let it go.

Switch changed several settings on the tracking device. The screen image changed to a more topographical display with half a dozen small blinking red dots spread across it. "This is showing Depthcharge should be several hundred yards that way," he said, pointing east. "Megatron and whoever's with him are half a mile past that."

Optimus nodded. "Let's go then. Dinobot, Switch, I want you two to take point. The rest of you, spread out so we're not one big target, but stay within sight of each other."

Nods of acknowledgement were given all around. Dinobot crept out from behind the outcrop of rocks and jogged ahead several paces to take the advance guard. Switchblade followed close behind and fell into step beside her. Dinobot's sword was held loose but ready at her side. She powered the laser cells in her optics to forty-percent to be ready at a moment's notice. Switchblade withdrew a long fighting knife from his back while keeping hold of the tracking device in his other hand. The soft beeps of the tracker were the only thing to break the silence as they carefully crept around each new hill and rocky outcrop. The younger raptor kept low and moved agilely while barely making a sound. Dinobot felt a flash of pride as they navigated the rocky terrain. It seemed she had taught her progeny well when it came to scouting.

"How much farther?" Dinobot whispered after several minutes.

Switch consulted the tracker. "Depthcharge should be just around the next hill." He returned the tracker to its subspace compartment and withdrew the twin of his other fighting knife from his back. With one blade in each hand, the raptor edged forward. "I'll go first."

Misgiving flashed through Dinobot's systems. She did not like it that her son felt it necessary to arm himself before joining up with his supposed comrade. But then again, Depthcharge did not seem like the type of mech to turn one's back on, nor one that could be trusted if your objectives did not completely synch up with his. The warrioress gripped her sword tighter. The first hint of trouble she detected from the ex-security officer she wouldn't hesitate a nano-klick to permanently remove him from the situation, especially if he made any kind of move against her son.

Switchblade led the way around the curve of the next hill, threading his way back and forth between the rocks. Dinobot followed close behind him. As they came around to the other side Switchblade suddenly stopped and pressed himself against the side of a large bolder. Dinobot swung around to take up position behind another rock across from Switch. Just around the side of low rock formation several paces ahead of them she spotted the distinct teal and yellow armor of her son's partner.

"Depthcharge!" Switch sharply whispered.

The ex-security officer visibly startled and whirled around towards them with his blaster up. Luckily, he seemed to recognize them at the last moment.

"Switchblade?" he growled. "What are you doing here?" With an annoyed glare he returned his blaster to his side.

Switch and Dinobot slunk out from behind their cover to join Depthcharge behind the wall of rocks he'd taken position. Switch returned one of his blades to his back. Dinobot kept her own weapon drawn. "I should be asking you that," Switch said, returning Depthcharge's animosity. "What are you going all the way out here?"

Just at that moment Optimus and the rest of their group came around the corner. Depthcharge glared at Switch. "You brought _them_ with you?"

"What was I suppose to do? I was using the scanner to make sure you were still alive and find you're all the way out here in the middle of nowhere following a hoard of Preds. You refuse to answer your comm-link, and never contacted me or anyone else to tell us Megatron was up to something."

"I'm under no obligation to tell you anything," Depthcharge snarled. "You decided to stay with Primal and his crew. I didn't come here to help fight the Beast Wars. My only concern is to hunt down and dispose of X."

"Care to give us a run down of the situation anyway?" Optimus asked. "You might be here just for Rampage, but we have to make sure Megatron's not up to something." Dinobot didn't miss the forced note of calm in his vocal processor. At least someone else seemed to share her dislike for the mech.

Depthcharge glared first at Optimus and then Switch before finally giving a disgruntled huff of defeat. "I was tracking X's energy signature, and followed it out here when I saw he was on the move. From what I can tell Megatron and his men have found something. They've been digging at the base of that mountain over there for the better part of the day." He gestured towards the other side of the rock formation he and the other Maximals hid behind. "I don't know what it is they're looking for, but from what little I can make out from a distance it looks like they've found some kind of ship. Look for yourself. You can see what looks like the top of the rear thruster of some large shuttle between the rocks."

Dinobot carefully scouted over the top of the rock formation along with the rest of the crew. Just as Depthcharge had said, Megatron and four other Predacons were gathered at the base of a mountain, digging. She spotted Talon along with Rampage, Inferno and Tarantulas. Peeking between the layers of volcanic rock was the corroded, half-collapsed edge of a large starship's rear thruster. Dinobot stared at it with furrowed optic ridges. What was a starship doing here on primitive Earth? Let alone one so large and so deeply buried? Was this some vessel of the aliens who'd created this planet?

"I'm surprised you haven't tried to go after X yet," Switchblade said as they all ducked down behind the rocks again before any of the Predacons could spot them.

Depthcharge growled behind his face mask. "I'd love nothing better than to but there are too many of them to take on by myself. I can't sneak any closer without being seen, and Megatron keeps that femme that's got X's spark too close to him to try and attack her." He withdrew a glowing energon blade from a subspace compartment. "As soon as I get her by herself, though, that monster's spark is done for."

Dinobot snorted. The misogynistic fool made going up against Talon sound so easy. He was in for a rude surprise when he finally met Talon on the battlefield.

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" Optimus angrily demanded. The other Maximals froze at their leader's question. The anger in Optimus's voice was palpable, and Optimus rarely let such frustration show.

Depthcharge regarded Optimus with a defiant glare. "I already told you: I'm not answerable to you or anyone on your crew. My mission is solely to hunt down Protoform X."

"Will you stop being so blinded by revenge for two astro-seconds, Depthcharge, to actually see what's going on?" Optimus snapped. "That isn't just some random spaceship that Megatron's found. That's a _Cybertronian_ ship. And a very old one. One that's obviously been on this planet for a very long time judging by the depth it's been buried."

"What are you saying, Optimus?" Cheetor timidly spoke up.

The transmetal gorilla looked around the assembled group of Maximal with a grim expression. "There's only two Cybertronian ships I know of that have made contact with this planet at this point in history. One should be on the bottom of the ocean, and the other buried at the base of what is Mount St. Hilary in modern day Oregon."

Dinobot felt her mech-fluid run cold in dawning realization. "You don't really think…?"

Optimus nodded. "Yes. What Megatron's found is none other than the Autobot starship, the Ark. And if that really is the Ark, then the course of the Beast Wars is about to completely change…"

_to be continued…_


	8. Diverging Timelines

**Chapter Eight: Diverging Timelines**

A startled silence hung over the group of Maximals as they tried to digest Optimus's conclusion. Dinobot felt ill to her intake tank. The implied repercussions of Megatron's discovery were staggering. If Optimus was right, then onboard that ship, slumbering in prolonged statis-lock, were none other than Optimus Prime, the original Megatron and all the other key warriors of the Great War. If something were to happen to them in their stasis-locks…

The possibilities were endless. Megatron had already tried to tamper with history once when he tried to exterminate the proto-humans in the valley. If he were to try and influence the outcome of the Great War more directly by going after one or more of the Autobots, then there was no telling what damage he could inflict on known history. If Megatron were to gain access to the Ark, it might very well spell the end of the Great War before it even began. It would be the destruction of the entire Maximal race, including her own sparkmate and son.

"We cannot allow Megatron aboard that ship," Dinobot said, frantically looking to meet Optimus's optics. "If he were to alter the timeline-"

"It would be catastrophic," Optimus nodded in grim agreement. Alarmed glances were exchanged between the other Maximals.

"Wait, wait, just hold up a second," Switchblade interjected. His expression was one of dazed confusion. "This isn't right. None of this is right. None of this should be happening. Megatron never found the Ark in my timeline. The Autobots and Decepticons were never part of the Beast Wars."

Dinobot gave her son a heavy look. "They are part of the timeline now. Whether they were before or not no longer matters. Megatron has found the Ark and must be stopped before any irreparable damage is done."

"Looks like we're already changing things in this time continuum after all," Depthcharge said. Dinobot couldn't be sure because of his tone, but she couldn't help but feel Depthcharge sounded almost pleased by this turn of events. Was he really that blinded by his mission to destroy Protoform X not to see the consequences Megatron's discovery could have on all of history?

"But is all this change for the better or worse?" Blackarachnia darkly questioned.

Dinobot saw out of the corner of her optic Switchblade's facial plates take on a sickened sheen as if he was wondering the same.

"It will definitely be for the worse if we don't do something to stop Megatron immediately," Optimus said.

"What's the plan?' Airazor asked.

"We outnumber Megatron and his goons by two," Cheetor said. "Well, three, if Depthcharge helps us. I say we take the fight to them."

Optimus turned to Omicron's former security officer. "What do you say, Depthcharge? Will you help us? This might be your only chance to take a shot at Rampage."

Depthcharge's optics narrowed. It was obvious what he thought of Optimus's request. But then with a reluctant growl, he nodded. "Fine. But only this one time. And only because I don't want to let X get away. This doesn't change how I feel about helping you and your crew fight this war."

"Your feelings are noted, and we nonetheless thank you for your assistance," Optimus said. He turned his attention to the rest of the Axalon's crew. "Airazor, Silverbolt, spread out to the north and south to come in on the Predacons from both sides. The rest of us will advance up the middle."

"Got it," Airazor chirped. Silverbolt seconded her acknowledgement with a nod.

Dinobot gripped her sword tighter, glad to finally have a battle plan in the making. "Any other particular orders?" she asked.

Optimus armed his forearm cannon with an audible clack of ammunition being chambered. His expression was unusually dark. "Under normal circumstances I would advise against taking a fatal shot if it were at all avoidable, but the stakes of this war have just jumped to a completely new level. We no longer have the luxury of playing nice. If Megatron or any of his men look like they're about to do anything to disturb the Ark or its occupants, remove that 'bot from battle. _Immediately_."

Dinobot wasn't the only one to stare at Optimus in stunned silence. Never had she heard Primal so openly order his men to kill their enemies. Usually he adhered to the idealistic Maximal code of taking prisoners first and permanently removing enemy combatants from battle only as a last resort. Such battle strategies had been a major point of disagreement between Dinobot and Optimus ever since she joined Primal's crew. To Dinobot, many of Optimus's methods of warfare were unforgivably soft-sparked. It made no sense to her to take an enemy prisoner - thus making one have to expend unnecessary resources on that prisoner's care and containment - when it was safer and more economical to just permanently remove that solider from the equation of ever coming back to fight for the opposing side again. To hear Optimus give such an order now proved just how serious things had become.

Taking point, Optimus slipped out behind the rock formation and began his advance on the Predacons. Dinobot and the others all moved to follow him. They managed to come within several hundred yards of Megatron's men before Tarantulas happened to look up and spot them. He gave a strangled hiss of alarm. Their cover blown, Optimus stopped the advance near a group of rocks that could offer some form of cover. The other Maximals spread out around him to form an offensive line.

"Megatron!" Optimus shouted across the distance still separating them. He raised his arm cannon and took aim at the Predacon warlord's back. "Step away from that ship!"

Megatron stiffly turned around. His expression was almost bored as he regarded his arch rival, as though he had already been expecting them. Talon was almost instantly by his side, her finger blades flexed and her dentals bared. "I was wondering when you'd finally get here," Megatron rumbled. "I knew it was too much to hope that you Maximals would stay away."

"We know what you've found and what you're planning to do," Optimus called. "We can't let you interfere with history anymore than you already have."

Megatron smirked. "And how to you plan to stop me exactly? Take a closer look of how you and your troops are positioned, Primal. Any stray shots from you might accidentally hit the Ark." The warlord's facial plates radiated smugness. "And if that were to happen, who knows how that might affect your precious Autobot ancestors inside."

From her position immediately to Optimus's right, Dinobot growled through her intake vents. Megatron was right. The Predacons' positioning was too close to the buried starship for them to haphazardly open fire without risk of hitting the Ark.

"I am _not_ letting you inside that ship, Megatron!" Optimus shouted.

Megatron smirked. "You are more than welcome to try, Primal." The warlord glanced back over his shoulder. "Talon! Rampage! See to it that the Maximals do not interfere with operations. Inferno, Tarantulas, keep digging! I want access into the Ark within the next deca-klick!"

"Yes, my liege!" Inferno saluted. He obediently went back to pushing cruiser-sized boulders away from the buried ship.

Beside Dinobot, Switchblade growled and sank into a fighting stance, both knives drawn, as Rampage strode away from the dig site towards the Maximals. "Finally, some sport," he grinned. He rubbed his hands together with a gleeful cackle. "Oh, who should I start with? The choices are all so scrumptious-looking."

"Why don't you start with me, you Pit-spawned fragger?" Depthcharge snarled, leaping up from behind his cover.

"Well, well, well… If it isn't the Peace Guard that hunted me down after I ate that little backwater colony. What was it called again? Omistron? Omnirton?"

"_Omicron!_" Depthcharge snarled.

Rampage chuckled. "Yes. That was it. I remember the colony now. It was small, but I remember leaving with a pleasant fullness in my intake tank. I believe it was that group of younglings I had for dessert that did it. They were so young and tasty. There was one in particular I remember most fondly: a little female two-wheeler. Her creators had been some of the first to die when I began my feast."

"Shut up," Depthcharge snarled, his optics narrowed to two slits of red. "I don't want to hear about your sick perversions."

"She didn't even try to run when I came for her. It was almost like she knew she was destined to become a part of me - that her spark was destined to be broken down into raw energy to sustain my own. All she did was stare at me with those big blue optics of hers. Even when I ripped her sparkchamber out and began to eat it she still didn't look away. Oh ho, I tell you! That little femme's spark was the most succulent thing I've ever tasted!"

With a howl of pure, unadulterated, visceral rage, Depthcharge opened fire on Rampage. "You disgusting psychopath!" Breaking from the line of Maximals, he rushed the laughing triple-changer.

"Depthcharge, no!" Optimus cried. But he might as well have been yelling at the mountains or the ground for all the good it did him. Depthcharge was already on Rampage. He slashed at Rampage with an energon knife. Its glowing blade of raw energon crystal slashed back and forth through the air in long blue arcs. Rampage danced backwards from the enraged security officer, laughing maniacally. Every couple swings Depthcharge would land a shallow blow on the larger mech, but almost instantly the wound would heal itself in a flash of light.

The _thump_ of Megatron's fusion cannon sounded, followed almost instantly by a deafening explosion on the other side of the boulders Dinobot and Switch hid behind. Both ducked down as a cloud of dirt, rock chips and diffused ions billowed over the boulder around them.

"I have to go help Depthcharge!" Switchblade yelled over the _thump_ of Megatron's fusion cannon. More explosions sounded on the other side of their cover. The air quickly became clogged with dust, making it difficult to vent cool air or see.

"No!" Dinobot yelled. She blindly reached out and caught her son's arm before he could rush away. "If you want to help Depthcharge, then Talon is your main target. She is the one who has Rampage's spark. If you want to defeat Rampage, then you have to defeat Talon first!"

Switch hesitated. Optimus's voice floated to them from somewhere beyond the roiling clouds of dirt choking the air. "Maximals, move in! Do everything you can to stop them from getting inside the ship! But be careful not to hit the Ark!" The blasts coming from Megatron's direction suddenly shifted towards where they'd just heard Optimus. An answering barrage of firepower came from Optimus's direction. Dinobot heard the hesitation in his attack, though; he didn't want to accidentally miss Megatron and hit the Ark.

Dinobot found her son's optics through the dirty haze now clogging the air. "You won't do anything to help your comrade if you attack Rampage now. He will never die if you do not destroy his spark first. Talon is the key to his defeat."

Switchblade again hesitated. More explosions and muffled curses sounded on the other side of their cover. Finally, the younger velociraptor gave a reluctant nod. He quickly ran a hand back through his helm's feathered crest. "Alright. But I'm going to need some help fighting her."

Dinobot gripped her sword tighter and edged to the side of their cover. "I'm glad to see I raised you with enough sense to recognize true danger when you see it."

Behind her Switchblade snorted through his nasal vents. "For all intents and purposes Talon is you, mum. I'd have to be glitching to think I could go up against her by myself."

Dinobot tried not to smile as she charged from behind the rock formation to join the fray with a fearsome battle cry. Switch followed close on her heels. Talon was less than a hundred feet away, fighting Cheetor. The racer was trying his best to hold his own against the larger femme, but was slowly being driven back by her relentless attacks. Dinobot quickened her pace. Cheetor stood no real chance against Talon. She was merely playing with him. If Talon truly wanted to she could slice the transmetal racer in half with nothing more than a snap of her wrist.

"Talon!" she snarled as she drew closer.

Talon rounded on Switch and Dinobot with a decidedly evil grin. "Sister," she purred. "I was hoping I would get the chance to meet you on the battlefield." She cast Switchblade a calculating glance. "I see you brought your half-breed whelp as well."

"Give me X's spark," Switch growled.

Talon snorted. "As impudent as ever, I see. You must get that from the rat."

Dinobot spared Cheetor a quick glance. "Go help Optimus and the others. Switch and I will see to Talon."

Cheetor didn't even try to argue. "You got it!" In a flash of yellow and teal he shot away across the battlefield towards the sound of fighting.

Dinobot turned back to her transmetal clone. Talon was sunk in a battle stance, her fingers flexed into scythe-like claws. Her one optic gleamed with bloodlust. Behind her, her tail lashed back and forth. Dinobot didn't even bother to demand that Talon hand over Rampage's spark. She already knew it would do no good. Talon would never hand over such a prize - at least not as long as she was still functional. Nothing less than deactivating or seriously injuring her would win them X's spark and help Switch complete his mission.

Luckily, Dinobot had never had any intention of trying to reason with her clone. She was going to get Rampage's spark even if it meant dismantling Talon piece by piece to get it. She was duty-bound to her son to help him see his mission complete.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, unbeknownst to either raptor, Megatron raised his hand to the side of his helm and tapped his internal comm-link on. He forced Optimus to duck for cover behind a small grouping of rocks with a rapid series of blasts from his fusion cannon. "Megatron to Attack Team 2. Come in."

"_Quickstrike here, boss. Me, Waspinator 'n Terrorsaur are all in position._"

Megatron grinned. "Good. Commence mission."

* * *

Rattrap punched a new range of settings into the Axalon's long-range scanner. Pressing enter, he leaned back in his seat enough so he could prop his feet on the edge of the computer consol. He vented a weary cycle of air and waited for the scanner to display its new readings.

"Something wrong, Rattrap?" Rhinox sat at the computer station next to Rattrap's. "You've been quiet ever since the others left to go after Depthcharge and those other energy signatures."

"Huh? Oh, naw. Nothin's wrong. Just tired's all. Switch kept me up late last night."

"Which one?"

Rattrap stared at Rhinox blankly. "Huh?"

"Which one? Switch as in the sparkling, or Switch from the future?"

Rattrap groaned in comprehension. It was frustrating how complicated time travel could make life sometimes. "Switch as in da one I can still hold in my arms. Darn kid refused ta go ta sleep. Every time I tried ta lay him down an' leave he'd start chirpin' like I was abandonin' him on da side of a freeway. Worst part was when I finally did get him ta sleep an' went back ta my quarters Choppa'face was already rechargin.' Seein' as how I didn't feel like takin' my own life inta my hands tryin' ta wake her up for some spousal privileges, if ya know wha' I mean, I had ta lay there starin' up at da ceiling 'til I finally fell asleep."

Rhinox made a face. "I really don't need to hear about your and Dinobot's love life."

Rattrap smirked, enjoying the engineer's discomfort. He liked to think of it as just payment for all the times Rhinox had given him a hard time. "But dat's wha' friends are for, isn't it, buddy? Someone ta tell all da juicy details to?"

"In this particular case, no," Rhinox deadpanned. "I respect Dinobot too much as a crewmate, warrior and friend to want to know what you two do in the privacy of your own quarters after hours."

Rattrap feigned a wounded pout. "Some friend you are…" His pout morphed back into a sly smirk. "But just fer da record, whoever said wha' me an' Dino-breath do is all done off duty? Just da other day I convinced her ta-"

Rhinox scoffed in disgust. "I _really_ don't want to know this!"

"Fine, fine," Rattrap relented, holding his hands up in surrender as he turned back to his computer monitor. He struggled to contain his mirth as silence once again settled over the empty bridge. It never ceased to amuse him how much of a prude his friend could be at times. Once they got back to Cybertron he was really going to have to look into finding a nice femme for Rhinox. Maybe Dinobot had some old female contacts who'd be interested in a Maximal mech. Primus only knew how dominant Dinobot could be in the berth. Perhaps another femme like her would be just the thing to get Rhinox to break out of his shell. He'd have to consult with Switchblade first, though, before he started making any match-making plans on his friend's behalf. Switch would know more than anyone else if there was any pre-destined love lined up for the engineer within the next seventy years.

Instead of making him more excited for his developing scheme, the thought instantly sobered Rattrap. Any amusement he might have had disappeared.

Recent events had begun to make Rattrap wonder how much authority Switchblade still had in telling them what they could expect to come. Numerous things had happened that differed from the timeline Switch and Depthcharge had come from. First Tigatron's return, and now this strange gathering of Predacons in the middle of nowhere. Rattrap had a feeling neither could mean anything good.

Who could say anymore what was going to happen next, or how else history might change from the future Switchblade had told them of? History was not written in stone. They had all seen how easily it could be changed in the valley of the proto-humans. One thing changed in the present could effect the future in devastating ways. Despite defeating Megatron and saving the proto-humans, that concept was still in play. There was no guarantee everyone was going to survive the war. Nor was a Maximal victory a hundred percent certain. No matter what Switch had told them, they still had to fight this war as if he told them they were going to lose. The fate of both Earth and Cybertron hung in the balance.

Rattrap had pondered all these things just the night before. Despite whatever he'd told Rhinox, the truth for his late night vigil wasn't because Switch had resisted going to recharge, but because he'd been unable to bring himself to lay the sleeping sparkling down and leave the room. Ever since his adult son had arrived from the future Rattrap had felt an inexplicable cloud of dread hanging over him. His whole life he'd spent running from the certainty of his and everyone else's impending Doom. He'd outgrown a lot of his fatalism since Switch's birth. After holding one's progeny in your arms, the thought of dying no longer held as much power over you if you knew dying would help ensure your child's survival. He'd realized that after he'd tried to stop Talon from kidnapping Switch what felt like a lifetime ago. He'd do anything to protect his family - including sacrificing his own life if that's what it ultimately came to. But the recent changes in known history were beginning to make Rattrap question his ability to protect his sparkmate and child.

With his adult son's arrival from the future, Rattrap felt like he had two sons now he had to protect instead of just one. He knew Switchblade was more than capable of holding his own in a fight. His mother had trained him, and she was one of the best warriors Rattrap knew. But that still didn't mean Rattrap didn't worry. Every time he looked into his adult son's face he saw the tiny sparkling he'd spent so many nights rocking to recharge in his arms. Last night had brought all those feelings bubbling unexpectedly to the surface. The course of the war was moving deeper and deeper into unknown territory and it terrified Rattrap to think about who might die before the Beast Wars finally ended despite Switch's version of the future. He might be able to protect Switch as a sparkling where he was safely ensconced aboard the Axalon, but what about his adult son when he left to track down Protoform X with that shady partner of his or he charged out onto the battlefield at Dinobot's side? Short of locking Switchblade in a storage locker for the remainder of the Beast Wars there was no way for him to protect his grown son.

"Rattrap… you okay?" Rhinox's voice once again rattled the spy out of his thoughts. Rhinox's face was contorted with concern as he stared at him from the other computer station.

Rattrap shakily nodded. He only now realized how agonized and scared his expression had become staring into space. "Yea, yea, fine. Just…" He glanced towards the door of the bridge. "I think I'm gonna go check on Switch real quick. He still has 'bout another hour 'til he wakes up from his nap, but I just wanna make sure he's okay."

"Alright," Rhinox nodded. If he was still concerned about the spy's odd behavior he did Rattrap the favor of not asking about it.

Rattrap gave his friend a grateful look. He really didn't feel like explaining his unfounded fears and apprehensions just now. Getting up from computer station Rattrap scurried for the door. He'd put Switch down for a short recharge in his room down the hall from his and Dinobot's on the crewmembers' level. He had no doubt the sparkling was fine and sleeping soundly, but after so many distressing thoughts he wanted to see his son for himself and be sure.

The sudden impact of a missile against the Axalon's outer hull, unfortunately, forced Rattrap to break off his journey.

Klaxons immediately began to wail. The bridge's lights flickered on and off several times before permanently blinking offline. Red emergency lights flared to life, illuminating the bridge in an eerie glow.

"Wha' da heck!" Rattrap yelled over the wail of alarms. He rushed back to his computer terminal. Rhinox was already pulling up the ship's Sentinel system on the monitor.

"Predacons! Three of them by the looks of it - Inferno, Quickstrike and Waspinator. They're staying out of range of Sentinel's guns and firing at us from a distance. Must be why the outer perimeter alarms didn't detect them."

Another missile slammed against the ship, making it shudder violently.

Rattrap furiously pounded at the keyboard, setting Sentinel's gun turrets for manual aiming. "Well, wha' are ya waitin' for? Turn on da ship's force field already!" Another missile exploded somewhere near the Axalon's base. "I'd like ta return fire without worryin' 'bout a missile slammin' straight inta da bridge while I'm tryin' ta do it!"

Rhinox grumbled something between his dentals, but did as Rattrap suggested. Almost immediately, the impacts lessened although Rattrap could still hear the occasional muffled _thump_ of projectiles exploding against the ship's defensive field.

"Where're dey firing from? I'll lock Sentinel's plasma guns on 'em."

Rhinox checked the monitor. "Due east, across the gorge. Near the top of the waterfall. But don't bother targeting them. They're too far out of range. You'll only waste plasma charges firing at them, and we don't have a lot of those to spare."

"If they're so far outta range den how're dey hittin' us?" To punctuate his point, another projectile rocked the ship from its port side.

"They must be using some kind of special long range missiles."

"Okay, but dat still doesn't explain why they're tryin' ta fire at us when dey know we have Sentinel an' force fields. They're just wastin' firepower."

Explosions continued to sound all around the ship.

Rhinox thoughtfully turned back to his computer and punched in a line of code to pull up several of the Axalon's outer security camera feeds. His expression instantly told Rattrap something was wrong.

"Wha' is it? Wha're dey doin'?"

Rattrap never got his answer as the Axalon suddenly shifted around them. Another explosion sounded outside. The Axalon lurched to the side, almost throwing Rattrap and Rhinox from their seats. New sirens began to scream.

"What're they doin'!"

Rhinox struggled back into his seat and began typing as numerous damage reports began to fill the screen. "They're not actually firing at the Axalon, but rather at the ground underneath it!" Another explosion sounded, making the ship shudder and tilt. "They're trying to send the ship over the cliff. From what I can tell they've already compromised the integrity of two of the ship's landing struts on its port side. A few more good hits, and they'll send the entire ship over the edge into the lake!"

Rattrap couldn't do anything else but stare at his friend in stunned horror. More _thumps_ pounded the air outside. A long metallic groan sounded from the walls as if the Axalon was screaming in pain. The floor shuddered and buckled under Rattrap's pedes, sending him careening into the edge of the computer terminal. One of the light fixtures lining the far side of the bridge was jostled loose from its fixture and tumbled to the ground. It shattered in a spray of broken glass and metal.

A sharp series of beeps began to squeal from Rhinox's computer. They were barely audible over the near-deafening howl of other emergency alarms. Error messages flooded the computer screen. "We just lost Sentinel! The force field's down!" As if to prove Rhinox right, another missile exploded against the Axalon's starboard side - only this time without any force field to deflect the projectile from the ship's hull. More explosions followed in quick succession as if the Predacons realized their target's vulnerability and were moving in for the proverbial kill. Circuits overheated and exploded inside several of the computer terminals. One of the starboard lift's plexiglas panes shattered. A thin haze of smoke began to fill the air.

Rhinox struggled to his feet, hanging onto the edge of the computer consol for support. "We have to get out of here! There's nothing more we can do! We'll be killed if we go down with the ship!"

"Not without Switch!" Rattrap screamed over the _boom_ of missiles relentlessly exploding against the Axalon's hull. "I ain't leavin' him behind!" Somewhere, two levels below them, his infant son was trapped inside his room. When he and Dinobot had converted Rattrap's old quarters into a nursery Rattrap had installed the protective siding on his son's berth himself. He'd done so to ensure that there wasn't any way for the inquisitive sparkling to escape or harm himself. But now with the Axalon slowly tipping closer and closer to the edge of its destruction, Rattrap couldn't help but wonder if the berth he'd laid Switch down inside to recharge was about to become his son's tomb.

All around him the ship continued to shudder and lurch. The bridge's decking was listing now at a twenty degree angle, forcing Rattrap to scramble uphill towards the door. In his haze of panic Rattrap marveled at the sheer speed at which everything had completely and utterly gone to the Pit.

Rhinox struggled after him towards the door. "We have to hurry! I don't know how much longer we have until the cliff gives out and we go over the side!"

Rattrap tried to swallow back his panic. Rhinox wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. The ship spasmed as another series of explosions pummeled the side of the Axalon. He felt the decking underneath his pedes begin to buckle. Somehow, he and Rhinox managed to reach the door and scrambled into the red-lit corridor beyond. The ship was listing at an awkward angle, forcing them to lean against the tilt. Smoke filled the air along with the unmistakable stench of electrical fire. Rattrap's vents kicked into full power to try and keep the smoke from clogging his systems. He could only see a few feet in front of him anymore the smoke was so thick. He had to find Switch. He wondered if any fires had broken out on the crewmember's level, but quickly pushed the thought from his processor. If they had then he might already be too late. Sparklings didn't develop full ventilation lines until their fifth solar cycle or so. Until then they were extremely susceptible to extreme temperatures. An overabundance of smoke or noxious fumes could cause a sparkling's ventilation lines to clog and their systems to overheat, leading to possible internal damage and even death.

_Hold on, kiddo_, Rattrap called as he charged deeper into the dying starship. _Daddy's coming…_

* * *

Switchblade wasn't sure who moved first: he, his mother or Talon. But in the flicker of an optic the three of them were locked in combat. He and his mother attacked in perfect tandem. While one slashed at Talon the other parried away the transmetal femme's deadly blades. Despite him and Dinobot working together Talon was still holding her own. No matter how hard they pressed their attacks Talon always seemed able to avoid being hit, if not manage an angry counterattack. She'd come uncomfortably close one time to Switchblade that would have sliced him open from pelvic plate to shoulder guard if he hadn't leapt backwards at the very last moment.

"My victory will be sweet when I permanently deactivate both of you at the same time," Talon taunted as she swiped her claws at Dinobot, forcing the warrioress to break off her attack and retreat several paces.

Switch lunged forward to take his mother's place. "You're welcome to try," he spat. "But you seem to be forgetting you're outnumbered two to one." He caught one of Talon's hands between his fighting knives as she lashed out to strike him and twisted her arm to the side. The femme howled in rage, but before she could retaliate Dinobot was once again at Switch's side. Using her heavy frame like a battering ram she slammed into Talon with her shoulder, driving the clone to the ground.

Before Talon could rise, Dinobot smashed a clawed foot down over Talon's wrist, pinning it to the ground. Switchblade did the same to Talon's other hand. Together, they\ poised their blades over the downed femme's throat cables. Talon glared at them, her lips pulled back from her fangs in a livid snarl. She did not try to fight them. The two were too heavy for her to throw off. In helpless, defiant rage she lay pinned under them on the ground.

Dinobot stared down at her clone with a victorious smirk. "There will be no deactivations today except for yours and Megatron's."

Talon spat, her optic a glowing red point of hate. "You might have defeated me, but none of you pathetic Maximals can stop Lord Megatron now. Once he breaks through that mountain and into the Ark he will see to it that the Autobots never live to reawaken in the future. The Decepticons will win the Great War and the Maximals will never even exist!"

"I will not let that happen," Dinobot growled.

Switchblade leaned forward and pressed the tip of his fighting knife to Talon's main throat line. "Give me Protoform X's spark. I know you have it."

Talon regarded Switch with a calculating gaze. "Lord Megatron charged me with guarding Rampage's spark. I will not sully his trust in me by just handing it over to you."

Switch growled, the sound long, deep, threatening and dark - something completely contrary to his usual easy-going personality. "I might be a Maximal and you might look exactly like my mom, but I won't have any qualms about tearing you apart piece by piece to find it."

Talon grinned up at him. Her expression was taunting. "Then do your worse, half-breed. You might be half Predacon, but I doubt you have the stomach to actually do it. You've been raised too softly to actually do something so violent. Your Maximal ideals make you too weak to actually harm an enemy prisoner. Especially one that is subdued and unable to fight back."

"In any other situation you might be right," Switch agreed. "But in this one case, no. In my timeline Protoform X killed countless people I knew and cared about. And no one - not even my own mother's clone - is going to stop me from preventing that from happening again."

The barest hint of doubt flickered across Talon's facial plates.

"Last chance," Switchblade warned, standing straight from over Talon. He tapped the flat of his blade against the subspace compartment on Talon's hip. "Give me X's spark, or so help me god I'll cut it out myself."

Talon didn't immediately answer. For a split second Switch entertained the hope she would willingly surrender the spark. He was serious about going to any length he had to to retrieve X's disembodied spark, but that didn't mean he wanted to if there was any way for him to avoid unnecessary violence. He hopes were quickly dashed, however.

"If you really want it that badly, then you're going to have to prove your Predacon heritage and take it yourself," Talon spat with a defiant glare. "Show me you really are my sister's progeny."

Out of the corner of his optic, Switch saw his mother cast him an uncertain look. He ignored it. His attention was completely focused on Talon. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to intentionally harm another bot, especially one that was downed and incapacitated like this, but he had no choice. He had to do this. For Cheetor and everyone else X had ever killed, he had to temporarily ignore his personal distaste and do what was needed for the greater good. "Fine." He pressed the tip of his blade against the edge of Talon's subspace compartment.

"Switchblade, you do not have to do this," Dinobot said.

"Yes, I do," Switch murmured. The tip of his fighting knife sank into Talon's plating with hardly any resistance. His mother had long ago instilled in him the pride of keeping his weapons sharpened to the finest point. Bright purple mech fluid welled around the edge of Switch's blade and streamed down the side of Talon's hip into the ground. Talon grit her teeth but let no other sign of pain show of her face. Switch felt a queasy twinge in the bottom of his fuel tank but forced himself to ignore it.

The blade sunk deeper until Switchblade felt a sudden resistance. It was the edge of Talon's subspace compartment. Switch twisted the blade like a screwdriver, searching for the compartments manual release. Talon sucked in a pained intake through her clenched teeth. The queasy feeling in Switch's tank intensified.

"Undo the release and save yourself this pain," Dinobot said. "We will take Rampage's spark one way or the other. "

Talon shifted her glare from Switch to Dinobot. "Never. True Predacons never surrender, even under pain of torture. If you had remained loyal to your heritage you wouldn't have forgotten that."

Dinobot growled and leaned down closer to Talon's identical transmetal face. "I've forgotten _nothing_ about what it means to be loyal."

Switchblade continued to twist the blade, levering it downward. Mech fluid was now flowing freely down Talon's hip. The ground beneath her was wet with a growing puddle of iridescent purple. Switch put more weight against the buried subspace compartment. Talon was unable to stop herself from squirming against the ground under his ministrations. Switch suddenly felt something underneath him give. Talon howled in pain. A fresh wave of mech fluid gushed down the side of her hip.

A wave of intense nausea washed through Switchblade at the sight. He suddenly felt light-headed, as if his processor was connected to the rest of his systems by only a few diodes. A ring of static-like darkness appeared around his visual readout. Suddenly feeling weak and shaky, Switch stumbled backwards several steps away from Talon, his fighting knives hanging limp by his sides.

"Switch?" Dinobot called. Even in his daze of illness Switchblade heard the worry in his mother's voice.

A throaty chuckle sounded from the ground. Talon gazed at him with a contemptuous smirk. "The half-breed can't stand the sight of spilt mech-fluid," she mocked.

"No." Switch weakly shook his helm. "It's not that… Something else is wrong." A wave of weakness rushed through him, robbing his tension cables of strength. It was suddenly very difficult to remain standing. His knee joints trembled underneath him. His fighting knives slipped from his hands and clattered to the ground by his feet. Another wave of weakness assault Switch, followed almost immediately by a searing pain through his spark. Crying out in pain, he clutched his chest plate. The young velociraptor crashed to his knees. His visual readout became a confusing kaleidoscope of colors. Another crippling wave of pain coursed through his spark, wringing a cry of indescribable pain from his vocal processor.

"Switch!" came his mother's panicked cry. There was a sudden burst of movement from her direction. Switchblade struggled to blink the static from his visual readout and found that Talon had somehow managed to knock his mother off of her in the confusion and regain her footing. Mech-fluid coated the entire right side of her body from her hip to her taloned feet. The transmetal femme took several steps backward, favoring her right side heavily.

"I will repay you for this injury," she venomously spat at Switch. She cast Dinobot a final glare. "If you are still alive after Lord Megatron finishes off the Autobots I will see to it that I hunt you down and finish you off once and for all." Turning tail, Talon then scurried away as fast as she could towards the sounds of battle closer to the base of the mountain.

Dinobot hesitated a moment, her optics trained on the retreating clone before rushing to Switch's side. Switchblade was barely strong enough to lift his head to look at her as another wave of pain slammed through him. Dinobot grabbed him by his shoulder plates and pulled him against her, supporting his weight in her arms as he screamed in agony.

"Switch! What's wrong! What's happening to you!"

"I… I don't kno- ah!" Switch convulsed in his mother's arms. His spark felt like it was being ripped apart in his chest. He helplessly clawed at his chest plate as though that would somehow chase away the phantom claws tearing at him. Through the pain Switch felt a new sensation steal over him. Although the pain in his spark remained as intense as ever, the pain radiating through the rest of his body suddenly lessened and was replaced by the most bizarre feeling of weightlessness. Weakly flickering his optics, he raised one hand in front of his face. At first he thought his optics were malfunctioning. But as he continued to stare at his upheld hand he realized he was, in fact, not hallucinating and that his hand really was fading in and out of existence.

Panic and helplessness swam in Dinobot's optics. Switchblade no longer had the strength to remain upright and collapsed backwards into her arms.

"Something's… wrong," he somehow managed to pant through the pain. "The timeline… something's changing…"

Dinobot's hand flew to the side of her helm. "Dinobot to Optimus! Come in!"

There was a brief pause before Switchblade heard the other side of the line pick up. _"Optimus here."_ There was the unmistakable sound of explosions and gunfire in the background that corresponded almost perfectly with the sounds of battle echoing from the base of the mountain. _"What is it? In case you didn't know we kind of have our hands full over here and-"_

"Has Megatron broken through the mountain into the Ark yet?" Dinobot screamed into the comm-link.

There was a long, serious pause. _"Not yet. Why?"_

"Switch is fading! Something is happening that is changing known history!"

"_What do you mean Switch is fading? Repeat!"_

"Something is happening right now that is compromising Switchblade's very existence! He is ceasing to exist! Is anyone else experiencing any such effects?"

"_No,"_ Optimus called over the line.

Through his pain-stricken daze Switch gasped with realization. He weakly reached out to Dinobot to get her attention. "…dad…" he rasped in a voice he could barely hear himself. "Axalon…" Dinobot's optics widened with understanding.

"_Dinobot, do what you can for Switch and we'll-"_

Switchblade never heard what Optimus planned to do before Dinobot swiftly cut the line and tapped her communication array for a new signal. "Dinobot to Axalon! Come in, over!"

A howl of angry static answered her.

"Dinobot to Rattrap! Answer me, vermin! Answer me!"

Through the tearing sensation in his spark and bouts of weightless non-existence, Switch felt a sinking feeling of doom settle over him. Another wave of pain slammed through his circuit lines from his sparkchamber all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes. His helm snapped backwards against the ground. He clenched his optic close against the pain while over Dinobot's comm-link the howl of static continued to drone.

To Be Continued

Hope you enjoyed!


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